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HOME LETTERS 



If rom tbe Continent 



JOSIAH LETCHWORTH 



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" Where'er I roam, whatever realms to see, 
My heart untravelled fondly turns to thee." 



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TXbe fmfcketbocfeer press 

1902 



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THF LIBRARY OF 
CONGRESS, 
Copies RhcsivED 

1902 

OOPVPIOMT ENTRY 

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Copyright, iqoz 

BY 

JOSIAH LETCHWORTH 






To my beloved daughter, whose ever-present and 
delightful enthusiasm, intelligent criticism, and dis- 
criminating appreciation of the true and beautiful, added 
so much to her parents' enjoyment during these months 
of European travel, this brief collection of letters is 
lovingly dedicated by her father. 

Buffalo, iqo2. 




CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Naples, December 14, 1899 . . 1 

New York — Waldorf-Astoria — *« Ems " — 
Departure — New York Bay — Passengers — 
Gulf Stream — Storm at Sea — Azores — 
Gibraltar. 

Naples, December 17, 1899 • • I2 

Visit at Gibraltar — Sardinia — Arrival at 
Naples. 

Naples, December 20, 1899 . . 23 

Naples — St. M artino — Vesuvius — Toledo 
Via Roma — Del Ovo — Liquefaction of the 
Blood of St. Januarius — Museum — Opera — 
Palace — Capo di Monte — Campo Santa — 
Campo Veccio. 

Amalfi, Italy, December 26, 1899 . 37 

Disaster at Amalfi — Paestum — Pompeii — 
Christmas. 

Sorrento, January i, 1900 . . 48 

Capri — Blue Grotto — Carriage Road to 
Amalfi — Tragedy of Previous Year — Vesu- 
vius — Cumse — Puteoli — Posilipo. 

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CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Rome, January 12, 1900 ... 57 

Approach to Rome — Its Fascination for 
Travelers — Appian Way —Roman Korum — 
Cloaca Maxima — Modern Rome — Early 
Christians — Old Churches — Protestant Bury- 
ing-groimd — Pantheon — Castello Sant' 
Angelo — Prisons of Beatrice Cenci and 
Benvenuto Cellini. 

Rome, January 26, 1900 ... 69 

Colosseum — Palatine Hill — The Porta 
Capena through which it is Probable Paul 
Entered Rome — View from the Janiculum — 
Circus Maximus — Mausoleum of Augustus 
Caesar. 

Rome, January 30, 1900 ... 78 
Failure to be Presented to Pope Leo XIII. 

Florence, February 3, 1900 . . 84 

Departure from Rome. 

Florence, February 18, 1900 . . 85 

Villa Bello Sguardo — Piazza della Signoria — 
Loggia dei Lanzi — Uffizi and Pitti Galleries 
— Archaeological Museum — Bargello— Royal 
Stables — Protestant Cemetery — Riccardi or 
Medici Palace — Duomo or Cathedral and 
Campanile — Baptistry. 

Venice, March 13, 1900 ... 98 

Residence of Michael Angelo at Florence — 
Church of Ognissanti — Tomb of Amerigo 
Vespucci — Certosa Monastery — San Marco 
— Santa Maria Novella — Santa Croce — 

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CONTENTS 

PAGE 

St. Bernardino — Medicean Chapel — Bologna 
— Medical University — Carnival — Ball at 
the Borghese Palace — Tower of Galileo. 

Prague, Bohemia, Austria, March 

30, 1900 ...... 107 

Pisa — Leaning Tower — Baptistry — Cathe- 
dral — Campo Santo — Genoa — Villa Palla- 
vicini — Palaces — Riviera — Custom House — 
Menton — Nice — Monte Carlo — Gambling 
Rooms — Mountain Excursion from Men- 
ton. 

Prague, March 31, 1900 . . . 117 

Milan — Cathedral — Last Supper, by Leon- 
ardo da Vinci — Lake Como — Bellagio — 
Sunday Service — Venice — Palaces — Grand 
Canal — St. Mark's — Piazza — Pigeons — Mil- 
itary Display on the King's Birthday — 
Doge's Palace — Paintings. 

Berlin, April 13, 1900 . . .126 

Trieste — Miramar — American Consul, Mr. 
Hossfield — The Semmering — Arrival in 
Vienna. 

Paris, May 7, 1900 .... 137 

Vienna — Picture Gallery — Museum — Ca- 
puchin Vault — Monument to Admiral Teg- 
ethoff — Opera — Royal Stables — Schon- 
brunn. 

Ouchy, Lake Geneva, May 24, 1900 146 

Prague — Dresden — Berlin — Emperor Will- 
iam II. and Family — Old Palace — Palace 
of the Elder Emperor William — Thier 
Garten — Charlottenburg. 

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CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Chamonix, June 7, 1900 . . .158 

Berlin — Hotel with Interesting Guests — 
Wittenberg, Home of Luther — Leipsic — 
Weimar — Goethe's House — Schiller's House 
— Liszt's Home — Eisnach — Wartburg — 
Home of Fritz Reuter — Wagner Collection 
— Frankfort — The Rothschilds — Goethe's 
Home and Birthplace — Strasburg — Cathe- 
dral. 

Vevay, June 13, 1900 .... 170 

Paris — Exposition — Tuileries Gone — Opera 
House — Napoleon's Tomb — Notre Dame — 
Chapel Expiatory — Musee de Cluny — 
Louvre — St. Germain l'Auxerrois — Prison de 
la Coneiergerie — Cell of Marie Antoinette — 
Luxemburg — Opera — Paris Streets — Bois 
de Boulogne — Chapelle de le Due d'Orleans. 

Interlaken, June 26, 1900 . . 181 

Paris —Versailles — Hamlet in the Park — 
Galerie de Batailles — Fontainebleau — Pan- 
theon — Sorbonne — St. Roch— Church Sacre 
Coeur — Dijon — Palace of the Duke of Bur- 
gundy — Switzerland. 

Interlaken, June 27, 1900 . . 191 

Switzerland — Alpine Loveliness — Personal 
Reminiscences — Chamonix — Mont Blanc — 
Zermatt — The Gemmie — Kanderstag Val- 
ley — Interlaken — Blaue See — Geneva — 
Diodati — Monte Rosa — Gorner Grat — 
Home. 



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HOME LETTERS 



HOME LETTERS 




Naples, Dec. 14, 1899. 
E had enjoyed our stay in 
New York, short as it was, 
and so felt quite ready for 
our departure Saturday 
morning after the busy, 
busy preparations of the weeks previous. 
We rose early on the morning of Decem- 
ber second and were the first to enter the 
breakfast-room of the Waldorf-Astoria — 
that model of hotels. 

Taking a carriage, and all our lug- 
gage with us, we drove direct to the 
Hoboken dock, where the "Ems" lay 
awaiting us. We were early, but already 
the usual bustle incident to the sailing of 
a steamer had begun. Crowds of friends, 
seeing passengers off, were there. On the 
cabin table ready for the gathering 
voyagers lay a huge package of letters, 



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with many boxes of flowers and baskets 
of fruit, gifts from absent ones, and of 
these, to our delight, a liberal percentage 
was for our party. 

As the hour wore away the excitement 
increased ; friends were leaving, more 
passengers were arriving. Among the 
latter we observed one lady, quite young, 

a Miss C who was brought on board 

carried by two men. She was not able to 
walk, could not move from her chair — 
wherever it was placed there she must re- 
main until carried elsewhere. Think of 
travelling under such circumstances, en- 
tirely alone. 

At length eleven o'clock arrived and the 
signal for departure was given. There was 
scurrying hither and thither by the ship's 
company and their friends. One of the 
belated passengers came hastening up the 
gangway at the last moment, while a few 
of the shore contingent had to leave the 
boat after the bridge was suspended in 
mid air and the screw of the steamer mak- 
ing its revolutions. The boat had already 
moved partly out from the pier when a 
dozen or more steerage passengers were 
seen tearing along with their meagre 



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effects, frantic to get aboard. This was 
accomplished with some little difficulty, 
and another start was made. Soon we 
caught a view of the beloved faces at the 
end of the dock, but it seemed only a 
moment when our increasing speed ren- 
dered them indistinguishable and the 
black pier was only a mass of humanity, 
above which, here and there, a white 
speck waved. 

We dried our eyes and strained them 
until it was no longer of any use, and 
then tried to divert our minds by looking 
at the sky-scrapers on the other side of 
the river. It was a glorious morning. 
New York bay never looked more beauti- 
ful as we wended our course down the 
majestic highway to the ocean, past the 
Statue of Liberty, Staten Island, the old 
Fortress La Fayette, the many forts on 
either side, Quarantine, and at last Sandy 
Hook. Our hastily written letters were 
dispatched by the pilot boat, and soon we 
were at sea. Gathered at table, we could 
form our first estimates of our cabin com- 
panions, of whom there were sixty-seven, to 
say nothing of the twelve hundred steerage 
passengers that occupied the lower deck 

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from stem to stern. We at once came to 
the conclusion that there must be more 
profit in carrying steerage passengers at 
thirty-five dollars each in such vast num- 
bers, than in first class, despite the possi- 
bly larger proportion of edibles consumed 
by the former. 

Our compagnons du voyage were many 
of them Americans going to Europe for 
limited tours. One, a Catholic bishop 
from Montana, who remarked to me that 
the Yellowstone Park was in his diocese. 
He was making his third visit to Pope 
Leo Thirteenth. One day in looking 
over my old Murray I discovered that the 
miracle of the liquefaction of the blood of 
Saint Januarius was to occur Dec. 16th, 
which I mentioned to him, and he mani- 
fested the greatest satisfaction at learning 
of the fact. He " thought it occurred but 
twice in the year," the last time in Sep- 
tember. I told him I had the advantage 
of him in one respect, having been pre- 
sented to His Holiness, Pius IX, whom 
he had never seen. He was a very pleas- 
ant gentleman, a good conversationalist, 
and of the best type of the better edu- 
cated class in the priesthood of the present 

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day. One evening when the young peo- 
ple, in order to break up any little 
frigidity that remained, not in keeping 
with the mild temperature of the Gulf 
Stream, suggested for general amusement 
pinning blindfolded the tail to the donkey, 
the Bishop gracefully made the attempt 
and without any serious injury to his 
usual dignity. On Sunday he held serv- 
ices in the steerage while two Protestant 
divines conducted the services after the 
manner of the Episcopal form in the 
saloon. 

There were a number of people on board 
from New York City, some going to 
Rome for the winter. There were young 
people, but no children ; many more women 
than men. Also on board was a little 
black-and-tan dog which the captain for- 
bade to come on deck, much to the disgust 
of his mistress who was making her twenty- 
fifth voyage. Nine times she had crossed 
with the dog, and never before had he been 
denied the privileges of the deck. Some 
of the ladies were bound for Florence to 
spend the winter. On the whole they 
were a very nice company of passengers 
and we made many pleasant acquaintances. 

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Our chairs and rugs were brought on deck, 
and with a sea comparatively quiet the 
land disappeared in the distance, the sun 
in a stormless sky dropped down into the 
sea, and we were indeed afloat on the great 
waters. When dinner was served at six 
thirty, Aletheand I were destined to dine 
alone at our little table, as there was a dis- 
inclination on the part of the other mem- 
bers of our party to join us. 

Sunday morning dawned fair and bright, 
but Katherine and Mabel preferred, as 
their state-rooms were the first forward of 
the saloon, to listen to the morning service 
there ; in fact they did not come on deck 
during the day, which made the time pass 
slowly for them. About noon we were 
entertained by the spouting of some 
whales, the broad, brown back of one of 
which I distinctly saw not far distant. By 
noon we had traversed 342 miles. The 
sun shone all day with but little wind and 
another clear sunset gave encouragement 
of a pleasant passage. Monday morning 
broke clear and cloudless once more and 
we were glad to get on deck. We had 
already struck the Gulf Stream and the 
water indicated a temperature of from 75 

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to 80 degrees ; an occasional floating log 
and pieces of green sea grass could be seen 
about us. I found my overcoat unneces- 
sary ; as the day wore on, however, clouds 
gathered and the rain fell. At midday 
362 miles more of our trip were registered. 

Tuesday the sea was choppy, with huge 
white caps which, as night came on, were 
beautiful in the moonlight. We all got 
on deck for a little while that morning 
but soon Katherine was compelled to go 
below and remained there all day, which 
was a long one for her. The sea grew 
more rough with every hour, and in the 
girls' state-room the satchels and trunks 
slipped their moorings with considerable 
disaster to the personal belongings en- 
closed. 

We on deck had our chairs tied to the 
railings and later, as the storm increased, 
ropes were stretched along and across the 
deck to catch hold of when walking. 
Soon after, by order of the Captain, all 
remaining in their chairs on deck were 
lashed in them with a strong cord about 
the waist, but even with this precaution, 
I saw three ladies go sprawling in a heap, 
chairs and all, down the deck and were 



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piled up against the railing. Mabel kept 
on deck all the afternoon and evening, 
despite the storm. Though slightly ill 
myself I went as usual to dinner. At noon 
we had made 386 miles. 

The storm was followed by a fine day 
Wednesday and we all spent the time on 
deck, Alethe, taking compassion on me in 
my loneliness, went down to dinner. Our 
record for that twenty-four hours was the 
best made during the trip — 392 miles. 
The next morning, Thursday, all went to 
breakfast together, spent the day on deck, 
and in the afternoon sighted a steamer, 
the first sail seen since leaving New York. 

Friday morning about three o'clock land 
was seen, the Azores, and this is one of 
the most interesting features of the south- 
ern route. There, in that great waste of 
waters, 1000 miles from Gibraltar and 
nearly 1600 from Newfoundland, rise 
those beautiful islands from out the sea, 
the highest peaks reaching up 1,500 or 
2,000 feet above the ocean level. Their 
formation is volcanic ; gray rocks near 
the water almost everywhere rise rather 
abruptly a few feet with deep caverns in 
their sides above which slope back beau- 

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tiful green, cultivated fields separated by 
low hedges. The landscape is diversified 
with little villages, quaint old windmills, 
picturesque churches, and such a variety 
of colors — rich browns and greens, grays, 
reds and yellows — as would delight an 
artist, while round all, the blue ocean 
with its white surge borders the shore. 
We were about two hours passing the 
larger island, San Miguel, which is thirty- 
five or forty miles long, and contains a 
population of one hundred and twenty 
thousand, about one half that of the 
whole group. 

Its largest town is Ponta Delgada, in 
passing which we dropped into the sea a 
half dozen well-corked bottles, one con- 
taining letters for you, trusting a chance 
boatman to rescue them from the waves 
and post the contents. A mail leaves 
once a week for Portugal. Ponta Del- 
gada looked very fine with its extensive 
greenhouses where are raised pineapples 
that have become celebrated. Frost is 
unknown here. Without our glasses we 
could clearly distinguish the people on 
the shore and mark their movements. 

To the right could be dimly discerned 

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the outline of the island of Santa Maria 
where Columbus landed on his return 
home from his first voyage. One singular 
thing about this island is that though it is 
surrounded by salt water, nevertheless, 
near the top of the hills, a copious spring 
of fresh water forms a small lake which 
affords abundant supply for the whole 
island. 

As we steamed past and away from 
these lovely islands of the sea, the blue 
sky and softened sunlight, with the sub- 
dued haze of the December afternoon, 
combined to produce a picture of such 
beauty as I think I have never seen ex- 
celled, and afforded us a day of agreeable 
excitement and interest never to be for- 
gotten. It implanted upon our memories 
a picture which I trust may never fade. 

Saturday, the 9th, was a quiet day 
spent mostly on deck. There was a fine 
sunset, a fresh young moon, and an im- 
promptu concert in the evening, followed 
by a collection for the benefit of the 
officers' and sailors' fund, which amounted 
to thirty-four dollars. 

Our second Sunday passed pleasantly. 
At noon we were 380 miles from Gibraltar, 

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which we approached in the early gray of 
Monday morning, the nth. We looked 
from our port-holes before daylight to see 
the light-houses upon the African coast,and 
about seven o'clock sailed into the bay of 
Gibraltar, entering on the west or sea side 
of the rock, quite to my surprise, as I had 
always supposed we passed the rock first 
and anchored on its eastern side. As one 
approaches he is reminded of the familiar 
picture he sees on posters of the Pruden- 
tial Insurance Company, so generally dis- 
tributed by that enterprising association. 
But I will tell in another letter of Gibraltar, 
should you care to know our impressions 
of this extraordinary place. 




ii 




Sunday, Naples, Dec. 17, 1899. 
UR visit at Gibraltar was of 
far greater interest than I 
had anticipated, and we 
look back upon it as an 
event never to be forgot- 
ten. We had expected to find a large 
number of English war vessels in the 
harbor upon our arrival, but in this we 
were disappointed ; the finest having just 
left on a short cruise, so we were not 
privileged to see any of great size. We 
descended from the " Ems " about eight 
o'clock in the morning to the small tug- 
boat, and stepping from it, as we touched 
shore, were soon confronted with stone 
walls of massive construction, the gates 
through which we were to enter standing 
open, and a guard presented each of us 
with a ticket admitting to the fortified city. 
As we walked up the narrow, winding 
street, which is the main avenue of the 
town, we were impressed by the strange 



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scenes which confronted us on every hand. 
Such a motley crowd : dark-eyed Span- 
iards, black-haired, bare-legged Moors, 
Englishmen, Americans, red-coated Brit- 
ish soldiers — civilization commingling 
with the almost barbarous condition of 
the Oriental, and there in those pent-up 
streets, with scarcely room to breathe, 
they grind and press against each other 
under the strong arm of strict military dis- 
cipline which demands and commands 
both respect and obedience. 

Passing up the street we stopped, out of 
curiosity, to look into the little hotels with 
their diminutive courts of flowers and 
palms. We passed a beautiful garden ad- 
joining what might be termed a palace, so 
fine were all its appointments, and we 
learned it was the home of one of the 
city's wealthiest citizens. Finally we came 
to the gate which admits to another sec- 
tion of the town, and through and beyond 
this were the most beautiful of public 
gardens and parks. Here every foot of 
ground, not otherwise occupied, seemed 
to have been utilized and beautified in the 
most careful manner. This is called the 
Alameda. 

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On the left, far up above our heads, rose 
the rock, and on the right, spread out in col- 
ors of the most beautiful green and blue, 
the Mediterranean ; on one hand Spain in 
its poverty and humiliation, on the other 
Africa in its barbarity and filth ; and here 
in the midst rises this rock, at once a 
proud example of the best of Christian 
civilization, and a fortress of impregnable 
power and strength. The perfect order 
which prevails throughout, the cleanli- 
ness, the discipline, the generous, honest 
courtesy which one meets everywhere, the 
sweet-faced English women and their 
well-dressed, happy children driving about 
in their pretty little carriages, make one 
feel that when this stronghold came into 
English possession there was extended 
far into the heart of Europe the elevating 
influences of the modern Anglo-Saxon 
home, the ideal of what is best and pur- 
est in Christian living. 

As you have probably read, the neck of 
land which extends from the mainland 
of Spain like a bent arm into the sea, 
forming a harbor at the entrance to the 
Mediterranean from the Atlantic, has at 
the end which we might call the hand, 



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this stupendous rock, rising 1500 feet 
above the sea level, while the arm, other 
than the hand, is almost level with the 
waves. Therefore the guns of Gibraltar 
command every foot of approach from 
Spain by land. The distance across to 
Morocco, on the other hand, is about six- 
teen miles so that a fleet, protected under 
cover of the fortress, would virtually com- 
mand the entrance to the Mediterranean 
from the ocean. 

We thought that perhaps by application 
to the Commandant we might have some 
privileges extended to us that would 
otherwise be denied, and this made us 
bold to apply at that official's residence. 
We were informed he was at breakfast and 
it was suggested we call half or three quar- 
ters of an hour later. This we did and 
then met another young soldier in full 
highland costume, who informed us the 
" Commandant was at breakfast — would 
we call a half hour later." We stated 
that our time was limited so the subaltern 
called a captain who most courteously in- 
formed us that really a pass would be 
of no special benefit to us for our brief 
stay. He said that a ride to the old 

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Moorish citadel and an inspection of the 
galleries were all we could hope to do and 
these were open to us ; so, putting out his 
hand, he cordially bade us adieu. 

We left him and, taking a little car- 
riage, commenced the climb up to the 
citadel. At the gate we left the carriage, 
registered our names, and continued on 
foot up through the covered way to the 
galleries which are hewn in the solid rock. 
Here huge cannon poke their noses 
out through rude openings cut for that 
purpose, and far below on the plateau be- 
yond the walls toward Spain, could be 
seen a regiment of Scotch Highlanders 
drilling, while another regiment of Fusi- 
liers with their band was marching to the 
parade ground. 

Just beyond this space where they drill, 
is a strip of land known as the " neutral 
ground." It is perhaps 500 feet wide, 
possibly 1000, extending across the neck 
or arm. Close to this on one side are the 
sentinel guard-houses of the Spanish ; on 
the other march back and forth the Eng- 
lish pickets. It is said 6000 Spaniards 
daily come over into Gibraltar and return ; 
not one is allowed to remain over night. 

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The gates close I think at six and all must 
be out. 

While we were standing on the dock 
ready to take the little tugboat for our re- 
turn to the steamer, who should approach 
us but Mrs. Geo. P. Putnam accompanied 
by her daughter and Miss Lewis. They 
had been in Spain and were to take the 
" Ems " to Naples. They said when they 
arrived on a previous steamer they were 
just too late to get into the city before the 
gate was closed for the night and in con- 
sequence had to remain, with eight or nine 
of their fellow travellers, on the little 
tugboat all night. In the morning they 
got their passes into the city but had 
then to wait half an hour for the gate to 
open. 

I am sure it would be most interesting 
if one could spend two or three days at 
Gibraltar and climb to the top of the 
Rock where the signal tower is located 
and come down on the other side. Then 
too one could follow some of the details 
of the siege which the Rock withstood for 
three years and seven months, about 1782, 
when the combined efforts of France and 
Spain failed to dislodge the little garrison 

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from its stronghold after desperate as- 
saults on the part of the allies. 

The English have had this stronghold 
since 1704 and I much doubt if it is ever 
relinquished either by diplomacy or war, 
as it seems to be absolutely impregnable 
and British pride and honor are both at 
stake in its continued possession. It is 
interesting for an American, whose love of 
country embraces also that of his English 
ancestors, to note a historical incident in 
connection with the attempted capture of 
Gibraltar just referred to, which illustrates 
how history sometimes repeats itself. 

The allied forces of Spain and France 
constructed huge floating batteries, and 
these with their heavy ordnance were 
moved to available points for storming 
the citadel. In the conflict these floating 
batteries were made untenable by the red 
hot shot of the English guns, and being 
set on fire were nearly demolished. It 
was then that the British soldiers' mag- 
nanimity manifested itself. Rescuing the 
perishing Spaniards, at the risk of their 
own lives, they brought them on shore 
and in their own hospitals, with tenderest 
care, nursed them back to life. Just so 

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our own brave American sailors at Santi- 
ago in 1898 rescued the Spaniards on the 
ill-fated vessels of the Spanish fleet and 
taught them how, even in battle, Ameri- 
cans, as well as Englishmen, know how to 
extend the hand of charity and kindness 
to a brave but defeated foe. 

There is another incident in connection 
with the great siege of Gibraltar which 
seems to find many counterparts in Amer- 
ican experience. It is related that one 
morning the Spanish Admiral, Don Juan 
Yangara, visited the British Commander, 
Admiral Digby. When the Spaniard in- 
timated that he wished to return to his 
own ship a royal midshipman appeared, 
touched his hat, and reported that the 
Admiral's boat was ready. When he was 
informed that the bearer of the message 
was none other than the young Duke of 
Clarence, afterward William Fourth, it is 
said he remarked : " Well does Great Brit- 
ain merit the empire of the sea when the 
humblest stations in her navy are sup- 
ported by princes of the blood." How 
often in our history have the best and 
noblest of our land filled positions of the 
most menial character and felt themselves 

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ennobled by the sacrifice which served so 
glorious a cause as country and common 
humanity, thus honoring alike the cause 
and the individual. 

The incident suggests one that is re- 
lated in connection with our late war. A 
government vessel while resting at anchor 
was passed by a beautiful private yacht 
which saluted as it went by. The officer 
on duty, turning to a private near by, 
sharply demanded, "Whose yacht is 
that?" The modest soldier answered, 
touching his cap, " It 's mine, sir." 

About two o'clock P.M. we were again 
under way and as we looked back at the 
bold outline we could not fail to recognize 
the well-founded resemblance of the rock 
to a crouching lion. 

The balance of our voyage of two and 
a half days was of little interest. We all 
went to the table most of the time, hav- 
ing got our " sea-legs " on as they term it. 
Most of Wednesday we were in sight of 
the Sardinia coast. Its bleak hills offered 
no great interest save in the watch-towers 
at frequent intervals built to protect the 
inhabitants in the times when pirates used 
to come over from the African coast. 

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Their movements being detected in this 
way signals were given and preparations 
made for their reception. These watch- 
towers are now used by the coast guard. 
The island of Sardinia, however, is un- 
healthy, owing to the sirocco, a severe dry 
wind that originates on the deserts of 
Africa and, crossing the Mediterranean, 
dries up everything in the island and gen- 
erates fever in the marshes. People must 
needs close their windows and doors an 
hour before sunset and not open them 
until an hour after sunrise. The lead and 
tin mines of the island are worked during 
some seasons of the year but during the 
most unhealthy period the miners return 
to Sicily. 

Wednesday evening while at dinner the 
Captain had the deck beautifully deco- 
rated with flags of all nations, and later 
the band played for a dance, the Captain 
leading off in the Virginia Reel. Thurs- 
day morning about seven, or a little 
sooner, we anchored in the bay of Naples. 
Vesuvius was taking a quiet smoke, and 
rain was threatening, but we got off the 
steamer about nine o'clock amid a din of 
Italian patois that was almost deafening, 

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and a crowd of row-boats which would 
reach half way to Capri if placed in a 
straight line. As we approached the 
shore we cast a grateful glance at the 
"Ems" which had brought us so safely 
and pleasantly across the great waters. 
But our first introduction to the bay of 
Naples at this time has not been exhilarat- 
ing and to us the " beautiful blue " is a 
myth for we have had little but wind and 
rain and storm since we landed here. 




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S^^^&ssss^&PJ 



Naples, Dec. 20, 1899. 
AVING given in a former 
letter somewhat in detail 
our experiences while on 
the ocean, it occurs to me 
that I will now recount 
something of our movements since we 
arrived in this interesting old city, for 
interesting it certainly is, with its popula- 
tion of six hundred and fifty thousand. I 
suppose were it to include all that adjoins 
it, as New York now does, it would be 
more than double that figure, for, as we 
drive along the bay for twelve miles and 
more, we can not well tell one place 
from another ; it seems, to a traveler, all 
Naples. 

As we drove in from Pompeii last even- 
ing, which occupied some two and a half 
hours, our coacher remarked during the 
journey, that when we entered Naples we 
would find it warmer. I had supposed 
ourselves in Naples for at least a half hour 

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then, but no, we still had another half 
hour before crossing the city line. It is 
not its extent which surprises, but the 
multiplicity of its population to the square 
yard. There seem, on the average, six 
children to one, and three women, a man 
and a donkey on the square yard ad- 
joining. The streets fairly swarm, the 
churches swarm, the priests swarm, the 
children swarm, the little one-horse 
vehicles swarm, the hotels swarm, every- 
thing swarms, even the little asses hitched 
before two-wheeled carts, and droves of 
goats in the principal streets. 

One thing, however, is not abundant ; 
I have seen but two bicycles since I came, 
and from one of these the rider had just 
fallen. Indeed, I do not see how there is 
any chance for wheelmen in a crowd like 
this, to say nothing of the hills, for Naples 
is built on a vast semicircle, the houses 
rising one above another. At the top of 
all, the old castle of St. Elmo frowns, but 
its frown means nothing serious now, only 
the old walls remain, simply a reminiscence 
of the past, when men fought in armor, 
and with spear and pikes. We have not 
paid it even the courtesy of a visit, though 

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yesterday we climbed far up beside it to 
stroll for a little while in the cloistered 
seclusion of St. Martino, once the mag- 
nificent quarters of some sixty monks, 
though now only two are there, and these 
we did not see. The graves in the court 
gave evidence of the long line of departed 
brothers. 

The French confiscated this valuable 
property with all its treasures and relics, 
but the rich marble chapels remain as evi- 
dence of the magnificence which pertains 
to these great conservatories of the cen- 
turied past. From a balcony one gets the 
most beautiful view of Naples imaginable. 
We saw it on a cool, cloudy, December 
afternoon. What it must be when sea 
and sky are clothed in a deep blue of a 
summer day was left to our imaginations 
to picture. The great city was spread 
like a map below, and the noise which 
came up to us was not that of ringing 
bells and steam whistles, but the shout of 
human voices more than anything else. 
Vesuvius smoked quietly and looked for 
all the world as innocent as though it 
had never swallowed cities for an after- 
noon's entertainment, and then, after an 

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interval, forty thousand people in a day. 
One can scarcely think of it quietly count- 
ing off the centuries at leisure, and now 
and then indulging in such treachery to 
the inhabitants who so confidingly cluster 
about its base. 

"And yonder Bluest of the Isles 
Fair Capri waits, her sapphire gates 
Beguiling to her bright estates." 

We were told that far to the right there 
used to be a small town called Dei, which 
could be seen from this same balcony, so 
the monks naturally could say, remember- 
ing the exceeding beauty of this scene, 
u See Naples and die." 

The Naples of to-day is not that of 
fifty years ago ; the Lazzaroni of whom 
we used to see pictures, half clad and 
swallowing macaroni by the yard, are no 
longer seen. The poor for the most part 
seem busy, as if trying to earn a livelihood 
and, though beggars still abound, their 
number is greatly reduced. The two- 
wheeled carry-alls, with a fat friar occupy- 
ing the one comfortable seat, and twenty 
or more men, women, boys, and girls 
hanging on in every kind of way where 

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possible, have disappeared. Street cars 
drawn by horses, fare two cents, three 
cents first class (the latter with cushioned 
seats) take the place of the old and less 
comfortable conveyances. On some streets 
electric cars are to be found, and low 
omnibuses that look like diminutive street 
cars on small wheels go trundling along. 

The most common mode of transport- 
ing people from one place to another is 
the use of the little four-wheeled open 
carriages, with a top like one of our bug- 
gies, the driver perched up on a seat in 
front. The wheels are like toys, the 
horses small, the harnesses highly decorat- 
ed with brass or silver mountings, which 
seem fairly to cover the horses, while in 
place of a bit there is a bar which rests on 
the nose just above the mouth, projecting 
three or four inches on either side, and the 
lines buckle into each end of this. These 
little establishments are everywhere, and 
the argus eye of the driver is ever upon 
you. If you are alone and wish to go to 
some point a mile distant, you jump in, 
give the name of the place, and say " Uno 
lire," one franc ; he never hesitates nor 
questions the manner of going, but goes, 

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lest you may retract and change your 
mind. If the party consists of three, it is 
all the same ; I have even seen four, be- 
sides the driver, wending their way along 
the " Toledo Via Roma," than which, 
perhaps, there is not a more crowded 
thoroughfare in Europe, narrow and wind- 
ing, with a sidewalk from one to three 
feet in breadth, and sometimes, in places, 
none at all. It is paved all the way with 
lava brought from the vicinity of Vesu- 
vius, while beautiful shops adorn either 
side. 

This busy street is upon the site of what 
was once, long, long ago, the wall of the 
city, and is supposed to divide the old 
town from the new, but which is now the 
older, 1 am sure it would puzzle other than 
an antiquarian to determine. From this 
street on either hand diverge still nar- 
rower ones, the buildings on each side 
eight or nine stories high, and the street 
generally inaccessible for horses. Often, 
instead of a steep ascent, there are stairs 
in long flights up which the people trudge, 
and goats and monkeys climb. 

Since the conflict which resulted in the 
establishment of United Italy, Naples, the 

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second city of the Kingdom, has seen 
great improvements. It has now an 
abundant supply of good water, brought 
from a distance of forty miles, with foun- 
tains flowing in the streets. New streets 
have been cut through the old portions of 
the city, broad and well paved, where, after 
the old buildings had been pulled down 
by the soldiers, beautiful new blocks have 
been erected on either side, miles in ex- 
tent. The people are a happy, contented 
class. We have now been here eight days 
and have yet to see the first instance of 
intoxication, rowdyism, cruelty, or quarrel- 
ling. The greatest forbearance is notice- 
able toward the poor and unfortunate, a 
class which seems to abound everywhere. 
The weather has not been propitious, 
on the contrary, it has been cold, rainy, 
and, for the first day or two, very wintry. 
It was a sight to see the waves break along 
the wharf, throwing the spray quite across 
the street. There is an old castle, Del 
Ovo, which stands out from the shore, a 
most conspicuous object from every point 
of view ; the waves in great white sheets 
would cover its dark, moss-covered sides 
two-thirds of the way to the top. Despite 

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the weather, men with bare feet are not 
uncommon as they pass with loads upon 
their heads, and the women carry their 
burdens in the same manner ; they all look 
so straight and strong it is a pleasure to 
watch them. 

There are said to be three hundred and 
forty odd churches in Naples, and the 
number of gowned priests with round-top, 
broad-brimmed hats that are seen would 
almost lead you to think there must be a 
thousand. The great Catholic event in 
Naples is the Liquefaction of the blood of 
St. Januarius, the Patron Saint of the city. 
This is kept in a glass bottle, and is sup- 
posed to liquefy three times during the 
year, when it is carried in great state and 
ceremony to the high altar in the cathe- 
dral. The head of the saint is carried at 
the same time, and when they come to- 
gether the miracle is supposed to occur. 
Both are kept under lock and key ; one 
key is in the possession of the munici- 
pality, and the other in that of the Arch- 
bishop, and neither will open the casket 
without the aid of the other. 

December 16th is one of the dates set 
for the liquefaction, and we went early to 

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the cathedral to see the ceremony. Ad- 
dressing myself to an old, grey-haired, 
rather fine looking man in a red robe who 
was just entering one of the confessional 
boxes, and whose face indicated long 
vigils, I inquired if I might detain him to 
ask a question, to which he replied he was 
willing to do anything for my conversion. 
I thanked him, and asked if the miracle 
of St. Januarius would take place that 
morning. He said that was with God 
alone ; if God were willing it would, other- 
wise not. We then noticed that prepara- 
tions were being made for some ceremony 
at the entrance to the beautiful chapel of 
the saint, which it is said cost over a mil- 
lion dollars, and going near we awaited 
the result. 

Soon the procession formed and 
marched to the high altar; we followed 
and there, fortunately, met the Bishop 
from Montana whose acquaintance we 
had made on the " Ems." He was very 
kind and pointed out to us the noblemen 
who attended in citizens dress, in a body 
of seven or eight, the Archbishop, the 
Cardinal, the Canons, the Academicians. 
Some were in gorgeous dress, but, alas, the 

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blood would not liquefy. It seldom does 
in December, but it did not seem to make 
any great difference so far as we could 
discover. Again and again the Canon 
carrying the precious relic passed around 
the circle in front and the devout kissed 
the glass then pressed it to the head and 
breast. Finally it was replaced, and in 
great state, with a canopy carried above it 
and followed by an immense throng, was 
carried through the great nave of the 
Cathedral, which was packed with people, 
and out through the large doors in front 
and down the street. 

I have read somewhere that when 
Napoleon was in Naples it chanced to be 
at a time other than one of the respective 
dates contemplated for the liquefaction to 
occur ; he requested to see the miracle 
performed and was informed that he could 
not as the blood would not liquefy upon 
notice. He sent word that unless the 
blood liquefied within twenty-four hours 
he would bombard the chapel, and as a 
result it liquefied within the specified 
time. 

On Sunday, in contrast to all this pomp 
and circumstance, we went to a quiet little 

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Presbyterian church and listened to an 
excellent sermon on the duty of women. 
The congregation sang and the simple 
service was delightfully refreshing. On 
Monday we attended a solemn requiem 
mass for the repose of the souls of Eng- 
lishmen who have fallen in the Transvaal, 
Englishmen and Americans were particu- 
larly invited. 

One of the features of Naples is the im- 
mense number of shops for the sale of 
coral and cameos, and one has to keep a 
close hold on the purse strings or there 
would be little left as the articles are so 
pretty and the carvings so artistic. But 
the one thing which every one goes to see 
is the museum, where are arranged the 
paintings, mosaics, bronzes etc., from 
Herculaneum and Pompeii and from other 
cities in southern Italy, where discoveries 
of treasure have been made. 

One night we attended the opera. I 
purchased a very desirable box for the sum 
of seven francs, and our conveyance to 
and from cost us three more, so for our 
party of three we expended about two 
dollars. There was an orchestra of forty 
persons and the singing fine. It com- 

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menced at nine-thirty ; we remained until 
nearly twelve, at the close of the third act, 
when we retired. I am told when the 
opera at St. Carlos occurs after Christmas, 
it commences at ten and closes about two 
A.M. This we hope to see later as it is 
one of the largest opera buildings in Eu- 
rope, built in 1737, and adjoins the palace 
of the Prince of Naples. 

This palace we visited on Thursday, 
when, it is open to the public from twelve 
to three o'clock. It is very extensive and 
beautiful in its exterior, nearly surrounded 
with fine gardens, and within there is 
much that is interesting in the way of 
tapestries, paintings, and grand rooms — 
the throne room, dining, audience, ball 
rooms, and others. From there we went 
to another palace, known as Capo di 
monte, a summer palace with a park about 
it. It is located in the upper part of the 
city, but the King and Queen rarely come 
here, attractive as it is. There are in this 
palace very many beautiful works of art ; 
paintings, sculpture, bronzes, and mosaics. 

One day we drove to the Campo Santo 
to see how the Neapolitans dispose of 
their dead. We went also to the Campo 

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Veccio where we saw 366 stone pits, each 
with a square flat stone at the top which 
could be lifted with a hand derrick. 
Thirty years ago, when I was here before, 
one of these lids was lifted every day of 
the year, and toward night all burials of 
the poor were performed by dropping the 
body, uncoffined, into these pits, the stone 
replaced and there left undisturbed for a 
year. But this has now been changed ; 
in the new Campo Santo the burial is 
made in the ground, and after a few 
months, if the friends desire, the bones 
are taken up and placed in a receptacle 
on the side of the enclosure, tier above 
tier, where a marble tablet can be fitted 
recording the name and date. In the ad- 
joining ground, where the wealthy and 
distinguished are buried, were many beau- 
tiful monuments. 

One feature of Naples impresses one as 
exceptionally peculiar. Unlike our Ameri- 
can cities, the rich are not located in one 
quarter and the poor in another, on the 
contrary there is everywhere the most in- 
discriminate mixing of the two. The 
beautiful villa, surrounded with its orange 
groves and gardens, often rises from sur- 

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roundings of poverty in crowded streets ; 
a palace is seen in the third, fourth, and 
fifth stories, while in the first are shops, 
the main entrance in the centre being the 
approach to the stables, and the poor are 
seen, perhaps in squalor, across the way. 
But the beautiful bay, the mild atmos- 
phere, the usual prevalence of sunshine, 
rendering gardens a possibility all the 
year, combine to make Naples, as it has 
been from the time of the Grecians, and 
later the Romans, a favorite place of resi- 
dence, despite the proximity of Vesuvius 
and occasional earthquakes. 

This is Christmas eve, so permit me, in 
closing, to wish you not only " A Merry 
Christmas " but " A Happy New Year." 




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Amalfi, Italy, Dec. 26, 1899. 
AM wondering if our friends 
at home have noticed the 
alarming accounts published 
in the " New York Herald " 
respecting the serious disas- 
ter at Amalfi. I sincerely hope if they have 
they have not felt worried on our account. 
The disaster, bad as it is, is little as com- 
pared with what the " Herald " account 
would imply, which states that the whole 
population, seven thousand in number, 
has abandoned the place in fear of further 
trouble. 

Amalfi has long been a sort of Mecca 
toward which I have turned in contem- 
plation of a possible return to Italy. The 
drive from Salerno along the shore here, 
remains in my memory as one of the most 
beautiful of my former European experi- 
ences, and when I have seen pictures of 
the old monastery which had been con- 
verted into a hotel, I have again and 

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again promised myself a second visit to 
Amalfi. 

After a few days of sight-seeing in 
Naples, during which Katherine took cold, 
I said, " We will leave in the morning for 
Amalfi and there, in the warm sunshine 
and quiet of the old monastery, this cold 
will soon disappear. It will be most in- 
teresting to spend Sunday and Christmas 
looking out upon the blue of the Medi- 
terranean from the old Capuchine grotto, 
basking in the sunshine amid these quaint 
cloister niches which face the sunny south." 
We were up early and, having everything 
packed in readiness, went down to break- 
fast. 

Imagine our startled surprise when an 
American who had spent some time in 
Italy, and who had acquired a knowledge 
of Italian, came over to us with the morn- 
ing paper in which was a telegram from 
Amalfi saying a portion of the bank near 
the Grand Albergo Cappucini Convento, 
the hotel I had been looking forward to, 
had fallen into the sea, carrying a portion 
of the hotel with it, and another hotel, 
the Catarini, had been entirely buried 
in the ruins. The despatch said, be- 

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sides, that several lives had been lost, 
among them two English ladies who were 
guests of the hotel Catarini. 

You can guess what a shock it was to 
us — to say nothing of our disappoint- 
ment, which was of little moment con- 
sidering the magnitude of the disaster and 
the possibilities which it disclosed. Had 
we started a day earlier we would in all 
probability have been guests in the house, 
possibly located in the very portion which 
fell, for the rooms that were carried away 
had been vacated only two hours before 
by Americans, who ate their breakfast in 
them with no thought of danger. As I 
write there is sitting near me a very pleas- 
ant English gentleman and his wife who 
bade these same people good-bye in those 
very rooms about ten o'clock and the dis- 
aster followed at twelve. This lady has 
just been relating to us her experience. 
She says the night before, she awoke with 
a feeling of great anxiety and apprehen- 
sion. Awakening her husband she told 
him of her feelings — that she thought they 
were falling down the cliff, the hotel and 
all : he laughed at her fears and told her 
to go to sleep. So strangely do " com- 

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ing events cast their shadows before 
them." 

But what a striking illustration of the 
mutability of human events was that of 
the two English ladies, one a young 
woman, about twenty-five years of age — 
her father a member of Parliament — and 
her companion. Two weeks ago they 
were in Naples, attended the little Presby- 
terian church there, where we went a week 
later; they were invited by the pastor after 
service to spend part of the afternoon at 
his house, which they did. Continuing 
their journey to Amalfi on Monday, they 
went to the Catarini. On Friday they 
mailed a Christmas card to the minister in 
Naples, from which he concluded they 
were guests at this hotel. Saturday morn- 
ing, seeing the telegram in the paper, he 
arrived at the conclusion that these must 
be the English ladies who had called upon 
him. On Monday he came to Amalfi 
and is still here awaiting the arrival of the 
father of the young lady. 

It appears that they had gone that 
morning for a walk and, returning at noon, 
the landlord informed them of impending 
danger. They insisted they must go in to 

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secure some money which was in their 
room ; he besought them not to go, but 
they went inside the building. Almost 
immediately the crash followed, and not 
a vestige of the hotel remains. There 
were small fishing boats in the water be- 
low the cliff, some of which, with their 
occupants, were buried in the sea. I will 
enclose a card showing the portions that 
fell ; about three windows of the Cappuc- 
ini hotel were carried away ; there were 
probably about eighteen persons killed. 
The hotel was immediately abandoned 
until a full examination could be made. 

We are at the Cappucini Alia Marina, 
close by the water, and kept by the same 
people — three brothers ; at least there 
were three, though one has recently died. 
They also keep the Hotel de Londres at 
Cava dei Terrini, said to be the best hotel 
in Italy. We spent our Christmas morn- 
ing there before coming here. It must be 
delightful there in April. Now, to be 
frank, Italy is cold. It is her winter, and 
suitable provision is not made for keeping 
warm. I have given up all expectation 
of being really comfortable again before 
April. 

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The housekeeper has been giving me a 
graphic description of her experience Fri- 
day morning. She says, as soon as the 
stones began to fall they commenced to 
remove things from that end of the hotel. 
They had already got sofas, piano, and 
other things out, but not the carpet. The 
old gardener was unscrewing the mirror, 
when his arm felt the wall moving. He 
shouted to them " run for your lives," 
which they all did, so no one from that 
hotel was lost. 

From the piazza of our hotel the ruins 
are in full view, only a very short distance 
away. The Chief of Public Works, with 
a number of other gentlemen, are here 
to-day making examinations. I imagine 
Americans will be quite unwilling to sleep 
in the old convent hereafter, even though 
assured it is safe. A large crowd is all 
the time on the quay in front of our hotel 
looking at the huge rocks, and gesticulat- 
ing in the usual excited Italian style. 

We wish to go on to Sorrento by the 
new road, but the tunnel is directly be- 
neath these rocks, a part of which fell, 
and hence there is no way but to take a 
row-boat and be ferried around to the 

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other side, beyond where the accident oc- 
curred. But to-day it has rained nearly 
all the time, the waves are high, and the 
landing and embarking most difficult of 
accomplishment, to say nothing of a climb 
up the rocks from the sea to the roadway. 
Just what we shall do remains a matter of 
doubt, for I am sure the row would be a 
most uncomfortable experience. We are 
awaiting developments. In the meantime 
I will tell you of our visit to the ruins of 
Paestum, which are about thirty miles 
from Cava. 

Now while we could probably make the 
trip in less than an hour if it were in 
America, it is a different affair traveling 
by rail in Italy, and we accomplished the 
journey in a little over three hours, travel- 
ing the whole distance so slowly we might 
well have fallen victims to the malaria 
which is said to infect the long level we 
must needs cross to reach the venerable 
ruins which remain, the only landmarks of 
a once large and prosperous city. But if 
we did capture the fever it is yet to mani- 
fest itself. 

These ruined Greek temples of Paestum 
are the finest and best preserved, it is said, 

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outside of Greece, and are very interest- 
ing. The temple of Neptune, with its 
thirty-six columns, twenty-eight feet high, 
and seven and a half in diameter, is the 
most beautiful, though all marble and 
outer finish have either been removed or 
fallen into decay. Nothing remains now 
but the massive blocks of travertine over 
which crawl lizards and an occasional 
snake, while ferns grow in the niches. 

As I simply mentioned in my letter 
from Naples one day while at that place, 
we went to Pompeii and walked along its 
streets which have been buried under the 
ashes from Vesuvius for nearly nineteen 
hundred years. The uncovered houses 
give evidence of the wealth and refine- 
ment of some of its inhabitants. An oc- 
casional skeleton found here and there 
has told of death and agony, but to me 
these rare evidences of suffocation are not 
so impressive as the thought of the thou- 
sands in the midst of happy homes and 
manifold comforts, who in a day were 
made homeless and penniless. What 
could be more appalling to contemplate ! 
My heart aches for these people, though 
nearly twenty centuries intervene between 

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us — and still the old mountain smokes 
away ! 

One morning at Naples I was up before 
sunrise, everything calm and peaceful, and 
there, from the apex of Vesuvius, a bar of 
smoke stretched in one unbroken line 
straight out to sea for miles. In a little 
while I looked again. The sun was just 
appearing over the hills and its touch had 
changed that great bar into one as of fire 
— the mountain appeared as if it were 
belching flame ! You can believe I soon 
had all the party up to see the wonderful 
sight, for as the volcano is at present 
comparatively quiet we may never see it 
again under such favorable auspices. It 
was a sight I shall never forget. 

The Italians do not seem to have 
caught the beautiful spirit of Christmas 
that prevails with the Germans and with 
us. The day in Italy is given over largely 
to the exploding of fire-crackers and fir- 
ing of pistols. But we did not wish 
Christmas to pass without doing some- 
thing to put ourselves in touch with the 
sacred sentiment of the day, so on Sun- 
day evening Mabel, Alethe and I started 
about ten o'clock in a carriage for the 

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Church la Trinita della Cava. This was 
originally consecrated by the Pope in 1027 
though the present church is quite mod- 
ern, retaining its old pulpit however. We 
were told that it has one of the best 
organs in Italy and that there would be 
midnight mass from ten to twelve, and 
high mass from twelve to two. 

The church is located far up the moun- 
tain, about three quarters of an hour's 
climb. It was a lovely moonlight, or 
rather starlight evening, the moon just 
showing itself above the horizon upon our 
return. It was a strangely beautiful ride 
in the fresh, clear, invigorating mountain 
air, with the stars never so bright, and the 
road winding about in the most mysteri- 
ous manner under archways and along 
white walls on either side, often a little 
lamp burning before a figure or painting 
of the Virgin. At last we reached the 
church and had some difficulty in finding 
our way into it, but once there, the effect 
was pleasing in the extreme. There were 
perhaps fifty choir boys, and their melodi- 
ous voices blending with the sweet tones 
of the organ as the mass was being in- 
toned, the soft light of the candles, and 

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the quiet of the small congregation com- 
bined to make the scene most impressive. 
We had a note to a nice-looking old 
priest, who sat in his confessional box 
quite sound asleep as we entered. On 
being aroused by an attendant who de- 
livered our introduction, he hastened to 
show his courtesy and good will. He 
went quickly out and soon the good priest 
and two attendants returned with chairs 
for us which were placed just outside the 
choir, in front of every one else. We re- 
mained until ten minutes after twelve, 
then wishing each other " A Merry Christ- 
mas " we quietly withdrew, driving back 
to the hotel. The next morning, after a 
breakfast before a nice bright fire in our 
room, we presented to each other our lit- 
tle Christmas remembrances. 




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Sorrento, January i, 1900. 

ROM our balcony here 
at Sorrento we look out 
upon extensive orange 
groves, the trees laden with 
bright, yellow oranges, 
which in the warm sunshine suggest quite 
the reverse of our northern January win- 
ter. We have been by steamer to the 
Island of Capri, and visited while there 
the celebrated Blue Grotto. Afterwards 
we drove through the narrow streets of 
the town, and up the mountain to Ana 
Capri, enjoying the fine views in every 
direction. Returning to the mainland, 
we saw not far distant two Italian war 
ships, making their way along the coast. 
It is probable there are no more formid- 
able and certainly no more ponderous in- 
struments of war afloat than these Italian 
battleships, whose hulks of double-plated 
steel, with oak between, together have a 
thickness of over two feet, and they carry 

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as armament the heaviest guns of any 
battleships in the world. 

We could not be content to leave this 
sequestered little town without driving 
over the beautiful road that has been 
constructed from here to Amalfi, com- 
pleted some five years since. It first as- 
cends by an easy winding grade to the 
shoulder of the mountain and then, de- 
scending, follows along the southern shore. 
For beauty and picturesque effect it is 
scarcely less attractive and interesting 
than the drive from Amalfi to Salerno, of 
which we have already written. It was 
while our three horses were slowly plod- 
ding along, and our eyes were feasting 
upon the beauty about us, that our at- 
tention was directed to the fact that, at 
the very spot we were then passing, less 
than a year previous, a young married 
lady had accidentally fallen over the low 
stone parapet at the side of the roadway 
and, striking on the rocks far below, had 
been killed. 

It was related that she and her hus- 
band, who, by the way, were guests at 
the same hotel where we were staying, 
had often driven over the road, it being 

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their favorite drive. On this occasion 
they had chosen to go alone, having 
one horse and a light phaeton, the gen- 
tleman driving. When they arrived at 
this spot, according to the husband's 
story, a rosette had fallen from the horse's 
bridle and he dismounted to get it. As 
he returned a few steps to recover the 
lost ornament, the wife of her own accord 
alighted from the carriage and, approach- 
ing the wall, had turned to seat herself 
upon it when, stepping upon a loose stone 
lost her balance and, falling backward 
over the precipice, fell far down upon the 
rocks below. The husband returning to 
Sorrento with the lifeless body told this 
harrowing tale, which was accepted by the 
authorities as true. As I listened to this 
sad recital my sympathies were aroused 
for the poor man who, in addition to his 
affliction in the loss of his companion, 
must henceforth suffer the sense of a sus- 
picion that possibly he might himself 
have been in some manner responsible for 
the terrible tragedy, and hence his whole 
life made a burden by that ever present 
doubt from which alone his own con- 
science could give him relief. Our sym- 

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pathy for those two unfortunates cast a 
sudden shadow over the spirits of our party 
which lingered with us far along the beau- 
tiful roadway. 

In the evening, after dinner, while en- 
joying a quiet talk in the smoking-room 
with an agreeable Englishman who had 
spent the previous winter at Sorrento, and 
who therefore would naturally be quite 
familiar with the incident just referred to, 
I expressed to him my feeling of sym- 
pathy for the unfortunate survivor of such 
a tragedy. Imagine my surprise when he 
informed me that my commiseration was 
quite unnecessary ; that in truth the man, 
a Frenchman, had, some months before, 
applied for an insurance upon his wife's 
life, of three hundred thousand francs. 
After a refusal or two from those who 
had looked him up he secured the policy 
from a company, and the papers had been 
executed. When he applied for the 
money, after the tragedy, the fact of his 
other application was communicated to 
the company, suspicions were aroused 
and he was arrested. Careful inquiry was 
made, and it then came to light that a 
lad had witnessed his pushing the woman 

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over the bank. Not long after, the miser- 
able wretch committed suicide in his cell. 
Thus one is impressed with the signifi- 
cance of the well known line, conceived 
by one who well knew the human heart, 

Where every prospect pleases, and only man 
is vile. 

But an account of our visit to the vicin- 
ity of Naples would be quite incomplete 
did we omit to tell of our ascent of Ve- 
suvius, which was made upon a pleasant 
day with bright sunshine everywhere. We 
left Naples by carriage, driving along the 
bay as far as Resina, which stands above 
the buried city of Herculaneum, and thence 
through fields of lava of various dates, 
1836, 1872, 1895, over which a carriage 
road is built. This is a road which, from 
time to time, must be changed and recon- 
structed as fresh streams of lava make 
alterations in its course necessary. Final- 
ly about two P.M. we reached the foot of 
the railroad up the mountain, where we 
lunched. Then taking seats on the open 
elevating car we were soon ascending at 
an angle of about sixty degrees which 
seemed little less than perpendicular. 

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When the car finally stopped near the foot 
of the cone, emerging from the shelter of 
the landing, we were literally captured by 
the guides, one could hardly tell how 
many in number, and through fine, dry 
ashes a foot or two in depth, into which 
we settled at every step, were hurried, 
lifted, pulled, dragged — we scarcely knew 
how — up the cone to its edge, which sur- 
rounds the crater. 

Standing there on the windward edge 
of the gulf to avoid the smoke and sul- 
phurous gases, and with a sharp breeze 
blowing, one could see but a little way 
into the crater, which was opaque with 
the reek of the subterranean fires. But at 
intervals of a few seconds from the depths 
below would come a terrible roar, almost 
instantly followed by a discharge of stone 
and lava and refuse that would rise far 
above the mountain and then fall back 
into the immeasurable depths of the 
crater. These irruptions would fairly 
shake the mountain and made a startling 
and sublime sight. But it was one which 
did not invite to a prolonged lingering to 
take in the situation. 

Returning, two guides firmly grasped 

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the arms near the shoulders, one on either 
side, then the group of three, leaning back 
at an angle of about forty-five degrees, 
would race down the cone in a series of 
leaps, striking perhaps every five or six 
feet and burying each individual knee- 
deep in ashes. Arrived at the head of the 
railway, the task of settling with the guides 
was something suggestive of what must 
have been the confusion at the Tower of 
Babel, and the calm experienced when 
once again seated in our carriage was 
much like that which follows a storm. 
We needed the long drive back to Naples 
to recover from excitements so varied. 

I must not neglect to mention that one 
day when driving we chanced to meet 
his Excellency the Crown Prince of Na- 
ples (so soon after to become King of 
Italy by the assassination of his honored 
father, King Humbert. — How suddenly 
these great events follow each other in 
this little world of ours !) 

One of the beautiful drives in Naples is 
to the ruins of Cumse, which was a Greek 
city, founded a thousand years before 
Christ. Nothing remains save an occa- 
sional ruin, while now and then the plow- 

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share turns up a relic to remind the 
antiquarian that the green fields he sees 
were once covered by a large and prosper- 
ous city. Near by is Puteoli, where the apos- 
tle Paul informs us he landed on his way 
to Rome. Still may be seen a remnant of 
the very pavement that it is probable he 
trod on that memorable journey when his 
friends came out from Rome to meet him 
at " The Three Taverns " — " whom when 
Paul saw he thanked God, and took cour- 
age." Near by also are the extensive re- 
mains of an amphitheatre in which Nero 
is said to have in person assumed the part 
of a gladiator. 

On our way back to Naples from the 
trip to Cumae there was pointed out to 
us the home of that great modern patriot 
the celebrated Garibaldi, where he died a 
little less than twenty years ago. We 
drove also to the old grotto of Posilipo, 
which is, in effect, a tunnel through the 
hill that surrounds Naples, and which 
descends on the north quite to the sea. 
The present grotto is eight hundred 
feet long, quite narrow, and forty feet 
high. It is lighted by gas, but there are 
a few days in the fall and spring when the 

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setting sun shines directly through it and 
the effect is most strange and bewilder- 
ingly mysterious. No wonder the place 
was once thought to be in some way asso- 
ciated with his Satanic Majesty. 

Thus it will be seen we have visited the 
objects of greatest interest in Naples and 
vicinity, and are ready to pack and get 
under way for Rome, though we would 
fain linger longer and watch the spring as 
it comes so early into this bay of ethereal 
blue, where winter is scarcely known and 
where sunshine takes on its brightest 
coloring. 

And now, as we enter upon this last 
year of the century, let us express the 
hope that it may be to you a happy one. 




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Rome, Jan. 12, 1900. 
HEN I had the pleasure of 
approaching the " Eternal 
City " thirty-three years 
ago, it was from the north ; 
this time we came from the 
south, after our pleasant stay in Naples and 
its vicinity. But from whatever direction 
one arrives one experiences a feeling akin 
to awe as the mysterious silence of the 
broad Campagna stretches around and 
about, with the Sabine and Albine moun- 
tains in the distance, and great ruins of 
aqueducts which for miles point the 
traveler toward Rome. Even as one ap- 
proaches by the modern mode of Steam 
cars, these feelings are none the less and 
the impression grows upon the mind 
after one has entered the city, visited the 
Forum, and trod the Via Sacra, along 
which the Roman victors with the spoils 
of conquest and prisoners of war marched 
into the capital itself, or yet more when 

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you drive out through the old gate or 
Porta St. Sebastiano a few miles, and re- 
turning, approach by the Appian Way, 
the route over which the victorious armies 
always entered Rome. 

On either side are these magnificent 
tombs of departed Romans, now but huge 
piles of stones and brick, despoiled of the 
beautiful carvings, of varied marbles, and 
statues of rarest workmanship that once 
adorned them. At the gate stood the 
temple of Mars, where, before entering 
the city, the armies halted for a time. 
How difficult for the mind to picture the 
scenes that must have presented them- 
selves ! Scenes so in contrast with our 
modern warfare and civilization ! Cer- 
tainly there is ample food for thought 
and speculation. We have not been in 
Rome a week, yet that has been time 
sufficient for us to begin to comprehend 
that there is material sufficient for the 
study of a lifetime. One does not won- 
der that year after year people come to 
Rome, while some, once here, remain, cap- 
tivated by the omnipresent feeling of the 
past, and made most comfortable by the 
surroundings of the present, for really 

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there seems to be everything here that 
one can desire. Do not think from this, 
however, that our party has any other 
idea than getting away very soon. 

When one considers the fact that the 
history of Rome covers a period of over 
half that of the profane history of the 
world, its magnitude begins to dawn upon 
the mind. Here are found statues and 
columns from Greece and Egypt which 
were in existence 1500 years before Christ. 
To stand upon the Palatine amid the ruins 
of palaces of Caesars, and look across what 
was once a swamp, to the Capitoline, 
where the Sabine encampment was, and 
between which afterward rose the Roman 
forum when the swamp referred to had 
been drained by the Cloaca Maxima into 
the Tiber, is to take a long look back- 
ward into the past. It is hard to believe 
that one is actually standing where so 
many great events, of which we have read 
from childhood, actually transpired. Here 
on this very spot Julius Caesar fell in the 
height of his glory, struck down by Brutus, 
and there Mark Antony stood when 
he pronounced the funeral oration over 
his dead body, and revenged his death. 

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Yonder stood the Golden House of Nero ; 
there the temple of Janus, the doors of 
which were never closed in the time of 
war ; there was the home of the vestal 
virgins, and here the altar where the 
sacred fire never ceased to burn ! 

Though the buildings and accumula- 
tions of centuries have buried these his- 
toric marvels fifty feet below the present 
surface, the enterprise of our times, aided 
by intelligent archaeological study, and 
immense expenditure of money, is 
bringing much to the light. Year by 
year the story of the past is becoming 
better understood while the same enter- 
prise, not content with thus unveiling the 
mysteries of the past, is fast building up 
amid the ruins of this old city, a new one 
which, from present indications, will in 
time be one of the most beautiful as well 
as most interesting in Europe. Since it 
has become the capital of United Italy 
great changes have taken place. Real- 
estate speculations have been rife here 
which, in a way, seem very much out of 
place in Rome. This feature is at first a 
little disappointing if one looks no deeper 
than the surface, but there are still left 

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miles and miles of narrow, winding, mys- 
terious streets that lead one in such a maze 
that all reckoning of one's whereabouts is 
quite lost. Of the one hundred and thirty 
castles that were at one time within the 
walls, you do not see so much now as you 
do of the immense palaces which still 
cover in many instances entire blocks. 

While the supremacy of the Church is 
not so manifest as when I was here be- 
fore, yet there is much of the " pomp and 
circumstance " which suggests to the 
mind the old sacrificial rites, when with 
great ceremony the saturnalian procession 
carried the ashes from the Temple of Vesta 
and deposited them in the Temple of 
Saturn, a ceremony which took place at 
night and gave rise to the term Saturnalia. 
In a way the deeply religious atmosphere 
of Rome seems in harmony with the facts 
that crowd upon the mind. We know 
that Paul was here " in his own hired 
house for two years," that he preached 
here, that the very gate through which 
he entered Rome can still be visited, and 
there is no doubt but that here he suf- 
fered martyrdom. Peter too was probably 
here, and suffered martyrdom, though 

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no reliable record has come down to us, 
and near by the Forum stands the Colos- 
seum where so many Christians suffered 
themselves to be devoured by wild beasts 
rather than forswear the faith they had 
espoused. Here lived and died Linus, 
the first Christian Bishop or Presbyter 
after Paul and Peter. How much more 
real seem the Epistles to the Romans 
when read here, where those to whom 
they were addressed lived, or others writ- 
ten by those who had actually lived here. 
One day we visited perhaps the oldest 
church where Christian services have been 
held in Rome, La Pudenziana. You will 
recall that in Paul's second epistle to 
Timothy, twenty-first verse, he says " and 
Pudens greeteth thee." This old church 
stands upon the site of the house where 
this same Pudens lived. He was a Roman 
Senator, a man of affairs, and Peter is 
said to have lodged with him from 41 to 
50 A.D., a period of nine years. Through 
the apostle's preaching Pudens's two 
daughters, Prassede and Pudenziana be- 
came Christians, and he there, during 
that time, baptized very many. The 
church first built on this spot was conse- 

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crated in 145. The two daughters of 
Pudens suffered martyrdom, as did many 
others in those days of terrible persecu- 
tion. The same verse to which I have 
referred mentions Linus who became 
first in authority after the death of Paul 
and Peter. His grave-stone, with the 
simple word Linus, was brought to light 
not long since when making some im- 
provements near St. Peter's, which is sup- 
posed to stand upon the spot where 
Peter was crucified in the Circus of Nero, 
and the finding of this tablet would seem 
confirmatory of the fact that Peter was 
also buried where St. Peter's now stands. 
In the church of which I speak there is 
a piece of the table which there is every 
reason to believe was the one used by 
the Apostle Peter for a communion table ; 
Cardinal Wiseman so believed and had 
the table removed to the Lateran for 
safe keeping. We also visited the church 
of St. Clements, perhaps the least altered 
of any here. It is most interesting from 
the fact that it was partly rebuilt in 1108 
and a few years ago when some repairs 
were being made at an adjoining build- 
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finally unearthed an older church buried 
twenty feet below, which had been lost 
sight of for seven hundred and fifty years. 
The earth was removed and today the 
entire old basilica can be explored with a 
light. Very curious it is with its atrium, 
quadriputicus, nave, choirs, ambones, an- 
cient marble screen, high altar, presbytery, 
tribune, episcopal chair of white marble, 
etc. Even in this lower church there are 
marble columns, of many kinds and 
lengths, showing that it too was built 
of material from still older buildings. 
Thus, in this marvelous place, the cen- 
turies are piled one above another. 

In this connection it is interesting to 
consider how the gospel having its ori- 
gin among the poor and lowly, or rather 
I should say, being first preached by our 
Lord to such, and its first converts being 
simple fishermen, soon began to have fol- 
lowers among the wealthy and educated, 
until at last it reached the throne, and 
the leader of the Roman army became 
himself, a Christian. Finally the pagan 
temples crumbled to ruins, and behold 
St. Peter's, costing fifty millions of dollars, 
stands in the midst of other structures, 

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each only in degree less magnificent ! 
The Colosseum that once furnished 
amusement for a Roman holiday, where 
wild beasts feasted on Christian martyrs, 
has long ago become a ruin, crumbling to 
dust. 

One of the interesting places in Rome 
today is the Protestant burying-ground, 
where tall, green junipers stand like senti- 
nels about the quiet resting places of 
many familiar names. Since I was here 
there have been added Mary and Wil- 
liam Howitt, Gibson the sculptor, and 
many others less known to us; but no 
one of English origin fails to seek the 
grave of Shelley, with its well-known 
lines, 

" Nothing of him that doth fade 
But doth suffer a sea change 
Into something rich and strange " 

and further on, in the old part, that of John 
Keats, with the inscription, " This grave 
contains all that was mortal of a young, 
English Poet, who, on his death-bed, in 
the bitterness of his heart at the mali- 
cious power of his enemies desired these 
words to be engraved on his tombstone " : 

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Here lies one whose name was writ in water. 

He died at twenty-six and Shelley at 
thirty. The house in which Keats died 
is at the foot of the Piazza de Spagna 
stairs. Thus the graves or these young 
men, of such wonderful poetic genius, are 
in the same city as that of that other 
wonderful man whose paintings have made 
his name illustrious, and who died at the 
age of thirty-seven, regretted by the whole 
world. But instead of a simple monu- 
ment to mark their repose, the bones of 
Raphael, Prince of Painters, lie beneath 
that great temple of the Pantheon, beside 
Italy's honored king, Victor Emanuel — 
a fitting tomb for one of such great 
worth. 

The Pantheon has withstood the pillage 
of two hundred tons of bronze ( four of 
which were of nails alone ) and, though 
despoiled of some of its marble, has still, 
after two thousand years, its sixteen 
superb columns, Egyptian granite mono- 
liths nearly fifty feet high and five in 
diameter ; its walls twenty feet in thick- 
ness, in whose niches once stood, beside 
Venus and Mars, statues of Augustus and 

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Agrippa, as well as Julius Caesar after 
he was made a god. The opening of 
twenty-eight feet in diameter at the top 
is now closed with glass ; and there seems 
no reason to doubt but that this most re- 
markable structure will last for twenty- 
centuries or more to come. 

Scarcely less interesting, perhaps more 
so, is that other great tomb, Hadrian's, 
which, built for a sepulchre, has for more 
than fifteen hundred years served as a 
fortress, a retreat for Popes in times of 
war, and long known as Castello Sant' An- 
gelo. It is the place where the Papal 
treasure of money was secured, and is ren- 
dered accessible by the covered way con- 
necting it with the Vatican, though distant 
perhaps half a mile. 

One of the earliest pictures that I hung 
upon my walls was an engraving of Bea- 
trice Cenci in her cell, with the grated 
window above, and it was with much 
interest that I found my way to this very 
cell, entered by an opening perhaps four 
feet high. There on the dirt floor which 
never knew finer covering than straw, 
with a hole seven or eight feet deep for a 
grave ( though in the case of Beatrice her 

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grave was elsewhere ) ; with a small open- 
ing in the roof for the passing in of food ; 
with a dim light through the grated win- 
dow ; there in that living grave this beauti- 
ful young woman was for a long time 
imprisoned. Not far away was also the 
similar cell in which that genius Ben- 
venuto Cellini for years suffered worse 
than death for no crime. Who can ever 
recount the scenes of bloodshed and suf- 
fering that these old walls have witnessed ! 
In a room known as that of the Inquisi- 
tion, two holes in the floor mark the spot 
where a cardinal was strangled. 

But I must draw this long letter to 
a close ; when one starts to talk of Rome 
there seems no place to stop, like the 
mighty turbid Tiber, whose tide flows on 
forever. 




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Rome, Jan. 26, 1900. 
E are nearing the close of our 
third week in Rome, and 
are beginning to realize 
that the time for packing 
trunks and moving on is 
near at hand. One can never exhaust this 
storehouse of history, but three weeks is 
quite sufficient to fill one's mind with 
material for long, long thoughts and it is 
always well to leave something for the 
next visit. We have feasted our eyes on 
these marvelous works of art, the produc- 
tions of Michael Angelo and Raphael, 
have stood before the Laocoon, the Apollo 
Belvidere, and other productions almost as 
beautiful. That marble statue of Pom- 
pey, at whose base it is probable Julius 
Csesar fell, cannot fail to command admi- 
ration, to say nothing of the interest one 
feels in it by reason of historical associa- 
tion. 

We have stood beside the tomb of the 

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great Scipios, now in the Vatican, to 
which place the sarcophagi have been 
removed from the ancient tomb in the 
Via Appia, have walked the narrow 
ways of the St. Calixtus Catacombs where 
so many of the early Christians sought 
refuge from their persecutors, have stood 
at the foot of the sacred stairs and 
seen the devotees ascend upon their 
knees, kissing again and again each sacred 
step, because they believe them to be the 
very ones which were in Pilot's house, and 
therefore to have been pressed by our Sav- 
ior's feet. The stairs are now covered 
with their third protection of wood, so 
great is the wear upon them. 

We have sauntered along the mys- 
terious passages of the Colosseum in the 
moonlight, and repeopled it with its 
eighty thousand seated spectators, and in 
fancy witnessed the heroic forms of mar- 
tyred saints as they watched the raven- 
ous wild beasts crouching in preparation 
to spring upon their prey, and we have 
listened as we almost seemed to hear the 
shout of the unsympathizing crowd which 
only laughed to see their terror. 

With thousands of other art lovers we 
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have admired that beautiful production, 
the statue of Moses, by Michael Angelo, 
which was to form part of a magnificent 
monument to Pope Julius II., but instead, 
the Pontiff sleeps in St. Peter's with 
but a simple slab to indicate his grave. 
Even thus quickly are the great forgot- 
ten and their places filled. We have 
visited gallery after gallery of beautiful 
paintings and frescoes until almost worn 
out with enthusiasms. 

Travelers in Rome today have great 
advantage over those of half a century 
ago, as there are several very intelligent 
men who make it their business to lecture 
upon the places of interest here, and, 
having given the subject upon which they 
discourse very careful study, the attentive 
listener can easily learn a great deal of 
Roman history without a vast amount 
of effort or research. And it is a most 
interesting way to study history too, 
standing on the very spot where some 
well-known event actually took place. 

We have had with us, in some of our 
walks, Signor Spadoni who lectures twice 
a day at different places. Though an 
Italian, he speaks good English and has 

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watched the unearthing of Ancient Rome, 
as he says, "spade by spade." We spent 
one afternoon with him on the Palatine 
Hill, the home of the Caesars. Augustus 
was the first to build a palace there, then 
followed another by Tiberius, after him 
Caligula's, and then the Golden House of 
Nero, which extended far beyond the 
Palatine. Nero's palace was followed by 
another by Demetrius and again after 
a hundred years with one by Septimus 
Severus. The whole system connected one 
with another, until the hill was covered as 
with a mighty group of palaces. Now it 
is all a great pile of ruins, upon which the 
Gardens of the Farnese, and houses that 
have long been old, have stood for hundreds 
of years. The original walls of the first 
fortress erected on the Palatine Hill, it is 
believed, were built five or six hundred 
years before Romulus and his twin brother 
were nurtured by their unnatural mother! 
Well did Byron write : 

" Behold the imperial mount ! 
' T is thus the mighty fall." 

But the ruins are not to remain an un- 
discovered country. Excavations are be- 

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ing extended and buried walls disclosed. 
Today we can walk the very pavement 
upon which Caligula stood and behold the 
hall, where he was so suddenly set upon 
and murdered. It goes without saying 
he was murdered. No one who was a 
Roman Emperor could scarce expect to 
die in any other way. At least it is a 
fact that of the thirty-nine or forty Roman 
rulers after Julius Caesar, twenty-five were 
murdered, two committed suicide, only 
twelve died natural deaths, and one or two 
abdicated. 

We found in Rome a very pleasant 
Presbyterian church, of which Dr. Gray is 
pastor, and have much enjoyed his ser- 
vices, his preaching, especially Sunday 
afternoons, being in great measure upon 
subjects in one way and another re- 
lating to Rome. Thus last Sunday his 
sermon was to show that the prophecy of 
Daniel, 9th chapter, foretelling the de- 
struction of Jerusalem and referred to by 
Christ in 24th of Matthew, was fulfilled 
perfectly by the capture of Jerusalem by 
Titus. This victory is commemorated by 
the Arch of Titus, upon which is chiseled 
the golden candlestick and other treasures 

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of the Jews. He also lectured one after- 
noon upon the Apostle Luke in Rome. 

Today we visited the remains of the 
Porta Capena in the Servian wall, through 
which there is every reason to believe Paul 
entered Rome. As to Peter, there appears 
to be no positive evidence that he was 
ever in Rome, neither is there anything, 
certain, to the contrary. It really is not 
a matter of very much importance so far 
as the Protestant Church is concerned, 
but quite vital to Catholicism, for, if he 
never was here, St. Peter's would seem 
to be out of place. 

It is estimated that Rome had a popu- 
lation of over three millions about the 
time of the apostles. Of what trifling mo- 
ment must have been the coming or going 
of these quiet individuals, one at least 
a prisoner and in chains, and how great 
must have been their faith when they 
looked upon the proud city and realized 
how small the company of their faithful 
followers ! yet, behold, here was the leaven 
which even yet is to extend its influence 
throughout the world until every knee 
shall bow and acknowledge the Christ the 
Apostles so loved, and " proclaim Him 

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Lord of Lords and King of Kings." They 
could little anticipate a time when Rome 
should scarcely boast of a thousand in- 
habitants, and was really saved only by 
accident, as it were, from becoming 
utterly lost, as were Nineveh and Baby- 
lon. This city, whose Circus Maximus 
could seat four hundred and fifty thou- 
sand people, at one time shrank to the 
population of a country village. 

Today as we look over this beautiful 
city from the Janiculum, in front of the 
splendid equestrian statue of Garibaldi, 
one may well question if there be another 
view in the whole world, covering so 
much that is interesting, so much that is 
valuable. How much of historical inter- 
est, mythological, Pagan, Christian ; how 
much of art — a veritable storehouse of the 
centuries, — of architecture, ancient, medi- 
aeval, renaissance, modern ; how much of 
our literature is connected with scenes 
and events that center in Rome ; to say 
nothing of the Church which still regards 
it as its mecca. One stands in admira- 
tion before this great, beautiful city of 
the present, which under the influence of 
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of United Italy can but be destined to a 
great and glorious career in the future. 

The present King and Queen are very 
popular I am told, are in sympathy with 
the people and deeply interested for the 
advancement of what is best. Victor 
Emanuel, while adapted in a way for the 
stormy times of 1870, was a man far less 
in harmony with the present age. He was 
not altogether in sympathy with the taking 
of Rome, and when the news of its cap- 
ture was communicated to him, it is said 
on the authority of our then Minister to 
Italy, Mr. Marsh, was so enraged that he 
broke several pieces of furniture in his 
anger. He was a terror when aroused, as 
his looks indicate. He was opposed to 
making war upon a neighboring state, 
saying he was " born a gentleman before 
he was born a king." 

Yesterday as a sort of fitting close to 
our sightseeing we visited what remains 
of the tomb or mausoleum of Augustus 
Caesar. It was built when he was Consul, 
and there he was buried, as well as Mar- 
cellus, Octavia, M. Agrippa, Livia, Dru- 
sus, Germanicus and his wife Agrippa, 
Tiberius, Caligula, Antonio, Claudius, Brit- 

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tanicus, and Nero. This magnificent mau- 
soleum was devastated by Alaric in 410, 
afterward by Robert Guiscard in the 
twelfth century. Later it became a for- 
tress occupied by the Colonna family. 
Finally it was captured by Frederic Barba- 
rossa and nearly destroyed. Last of all it 
was used as a place for holding bull fights, 
and now a slouchy old woman, for the 
consideration of a franc, unlocks the door 
and conducts you through the massive 
corridors, showing you a model in cork of 
the original structure, which must have 
been well worthy the resting place of 
Kings and Emperors. 




77 




Rome, Jan. 30, 1900. 
T occurs to me that possibly 
the fine times and gaiety 
you have been enjoying in 
Buffalo may have served to 
disincline your mind to a 
consideration of the more serious subjects 
with which we have recently been occu- 
pied : such for instance as the probable 
duration of the Apostle Peter's visit to 
Rome, indeed as to the absolute evidence 
of his having been here at all ; or the very 
interesting testimony as to the real num- 
ber of Christian martyrs that suffered 
death in the arena of the Colosseum, or 
who found a burial place in the Cata- 
combs. All such subjects are inter- 
esting in their way, but I think I must 
tell you a little of our own experience 
in connection with our efforts to be pre- 
sented to Pope Leo XIII. 

Soon after our arrival in Rome I spoke 
with the members of our party in relation 

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to their wishes as to being introduced 
to His Holiness, while here, but the sub- 
ject was set aside^ and I thought the 
suggestion quite negatived. However, 
to prevent any disappointment, I deter- 
mined to take such measures as I knew 
would be requisite in case we should 
desire to be presented. I therefore called 
on our Consul General and showed him 
my letter from Secretary Hay. He gave 
me a card of introduction to Dr. O'Con- 
nell of the Collegio Americano and I 
called several times to present this, but 
the attendant always gave some plausible 
excuse. Either it was not the day the 
Doctor received calls, or he was ill, was 
out, had guests for dinner, or some ex_ 
planation of this sort. 

In the meantime the unexpired period 
of our visit in Rome was growing so short 
I regarded the subject as virtually disposed 
of, and gave up any further effort on 
the matter. Imagine my surprise, then, 
yesterday morning, upon arriving at the 
Vatican, and calling the attention of my 
companions to the door where guests are 
admitted when presented to the Pope, to 
have all three declare that they would not 

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leave Rome until they had seen Leo 
XIII ! Imagine also my perplexity ! Our 
plans were all made to leave Wednesday. 
This was Monday. I expostulated, ex- 
plained how I had urged its propriety at 
the first, spoke of their indifference; all 
was of no avail. The Pope they would see, 
if it took all winter : everything sank into 
insignificance beside this now great event. 
Well, there was only one thing to do 
and that was, yield to the majority, so 
I went after luncheon to make another 
effort to secure my long postponed inter- 
view with Dr. O'Connell. " He was out ; 
I should call in the morning at ten." I 
retired early that night, was up before 
light, had my breakfast, and, despite a 
pouring rain, started to secure that all im- 
portant interview, for without it nothing 
could be done. I arrived about twenty 
minutes before the appointed hour, in- 
tending there should be no chance of 
escape this time ; I could wait, I thought, 
if necessary. I rang the bell ; the attend- 
ant said, upon my request to see the 
Doctor, " Impossible ! he was ill, he 
would receive on Wednesday; " directing 
my attention to the announcement to 

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that effect on the wall, notwithstanding I 
had been specially directed the night be- 
fore to call at ten. 

" Could I speak French ? " Could I ! it 
seemed to me I could talk in almost any 
language by that time, French, Dutch, 
Hindoo, Chinese, and I probably expressed 
that in my countenance. I explained 
to him that the emergency was great ; 
we were about to leave Rome, it might 
be forever, and the Pope being advanced 
in years it was probably the last oppor- 
tunity he would have of seeing either one 
of us. I finally looked him square in the 
eye ; I took the card of our Consul Gen- 
eral and put it with my own : I know he 
felt I meant business, and that I had the 
whole army and navy of the United 
States behind me. I planted those down 
before him and, summoning all the French 
I could command, I politely, and as 
modestly as the circumstances would per- 
mit, asked him to present to the Doctor, 
with my regrets to learn of his illness, and 
with my compliments, a request that he, 
the Doctor, would kindly furnish me with 
the necessary document for presentation 
to the Pope. 

6 

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After a lapse of half an hour the man 
returned bearing in his hand a formidable 
looking envelope, introducing the Illus- 
trious Monseigneur Josiah Letchworth, 
etc., to the Secretary of the Pope at 
the Vatican. You cannot probably con- 
ceive of the proud air with which I de- 
scended those marble steps and seated 
myself in the one-horse carriage, with its 
poorly fed, raw-boned beast, that had 
awaited me at the door. With that en- 
velope projecting from my overcoat 
pocket, I reached the hotel and threw 
myself into the outstretched arms of my 
family, who by this time were up and had 
breakfasted. We all proceeded to the 
Vatican, thinking perhaps we could make 
a long story short and be presented today 
and thus carry out our original plan of 
departing from the Eternal City to- 
morrow. We sought an interview with 
the Secretary. " Could I speak French ? " 
My daughter could : I referred him to her. 
She rose to the occasion most beautifully 
and added new lustre to the family name, 
but alas ! " Today ! This week ! Quite 
impossible ! " And so now we are await- 
ing our guide, who believes he has " strings 

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to pull," that others know not of. He is 
expected to arrive any moment at our 
hotel, and his report will be final. If 
he cannot secure the invitation, then the 
Pope himself must bear the consequences. 
We can do no more about it, and as 
to staying in Rome until next spring, 
simply to interview the Pope and please 
the hotel proprietor, I have already in- 
timated to the other members of the 
party that I have objections to such a 
course. 




83 




Florence, Feb. 3. 
ELL, we left Rome on the 1st 
instant. Our guide came 
to the hotel to say that he 
had the most positive in- 
formation that the cards 
of invitation had been made out for us 
by the Bishop, and that the Secretary 
had only to put them in the envelope 
and mail them ; they might arrive that 
evening or in the morning. But alas ! 
no such cards came to hand, and so 
the day following we took our departure 
without having seen Pope Leo XIII. No 
doubt he is entirely unconscious of the 
loss to himself. As for ourselves, an old 
man's blessing is always good for the soul 
and we should have been glad of his. 

Leaving Rome we passed on to Perugia 
to visit the Pinacotheca, where are pictures 
by Perugino and Pinturicchio. ( I have 
used up all my p's ! No ! here are three 
more so I will put them in ) — We today 
passed through the place where Petrarch 
was born in 1304. 

84 




Florence, Feby. 18, 1900. 
]T was two weeks yesterday 
that we arrived in Florence 
and met the cordial greet- 
ing of Lottie and Anna, 
who had arranged for our 
accommodation in these pleasant rooms 
of Madame Camerano's. This lovely city, 
always charming, is doubly so when en- 
joyed under such delightful circumstances. 
I recall that when here thirty-two years 
ago, I wrote to Brother George about a 
fine old house just outside the Porta 
Romana, at one time the home of Haw- 
thorne, and where he wrote at least a 
portion of " The Marble Faun," and I 
suggested in my letter that he come over 
with his family and we would take the 
establishment for the season, and all live 
there together, the children studying Ital- 
ian and French and he and I visiting the 
picture galleries and fine old churches. 
Alas ! how great the changes that the 

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years have brought to pass since then. 
The house remains the same, with its 
grand open loggia on the third floor, and 
its picturesque old tower, with a sort of 
spell about it all that seems to proclaim 
its association with one about whose 
writings there ever breathes an atmos- 
phere of mystery. The beautiful view is 
not the less magnificent as you stand 
at the entrance, but the English lady 
who lives there now, extended to us no 
cordial invitation to enter the sacred pre- 
cincts of her home, and so, reluctantly, 
we turned away from Villa Bello Sguardo 
with a sigh, as we thought of loved ones 
gone before. Yet I could but think it 
strange that in the revolution of the 
years it should be our good sister and 
Anna who should be here in Florence to 
welcome us now. 

Florence is charming even in this wet 
February month. Its miles of paintings 
and acres of statuary, its beautiful 
churches, and historic places, afford the 
tourist an inexhaustible fund of enter- 
tainment and instruction which make the 
days seem very short and fleeting. On 
our way here, as I said, we spent a day 

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and two nights at Perugia, which is about 
half way from Rome, " a city set on a 
hill," with picturesque, narrow streets, 
and on our way from there to Florence 
we skirted the beautiful Lake of Trasi- 
meno, where Hannibal defeated the Ro- 
man army, almost annihilating it in an 
ambush. This exploit is the more re- 
markable because the Carthagenian gen- 
eral was then only twenty-six years of 
age. 

Florence has just met with a serious 
loss in the death of Dr. McDougall, who 
for forty years has been the pastor of 
the Scotch church here ; a man who has 
done very much for the cause of evan- 
gelical religion in Italy. His daughter, 
Miss McDougall, was in Buffalo not many 
months ago and, I think, gave a musical 
recital at the Twentieth Century Club. 
Dr. McDougall came here at a time when 
it was a serious misdemeanor to give a 
Bible to a Catholic, and when Protestant 
meetings, if held at all, must be in an 
upper room, without singing. When dis- 
persing after the gatherings it was neces- 
sary to go one by one to avoid attracting 
attention, for an arrest sometimes meant 

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imprisonment for five years before trial 
could be had. 

It is difficult now in this more enlight- 
ened and liberal condition of affairs to 
comprehend how truly serious was such 
a state of things. We think great pro- 
gress has been made in our own coun- 
try during the last fifty years for the 
betterment of the people, but it is prob- 
able that in no other country, has greater 
advance been made in education, moral- 
ity, enlightenment and religious liberty, 
than in Italy ; especially has this improve- 
ment been great since its unification in 
1870. 

Florence enjoyed a period of great 
activity while it was the Italian capital, 
and felt a correspondingly serious period 
of depression when the seat of govern- 
ment was removed to Rome. Now, how- 
ever, it has somewhat recovered from its 
decline, and everywhere there is an air of 
activity and a general appearance of hap- 
piness among the common people, which 
is most delightful to behold. I think, per- 
haps, it is this age of electricity and its 
introduction, that is doing more than we 
realize to effect these great changes. The 

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iron poles of the electric tram go crawling 
up the steep acclivities ; old roadways 
are broadened, repaved and better graded, 
while light, that harbinger of life, is shed 
into dark and narrow passages where 
sunshine can never enter. Yesterday 
we went to Fiesole, that picturesque 
retreat a thousand feet above Florence, 
passing on our way the beautiful villa of 
Earl Crawford's, where Queen Victoria 
sometimes makes a stay when in Flor- 
ence, and where Boccaccio wrote the De- 
cameron during the plague. Even here 
along the rose-bowered paths where Dante 
mused and wrote, and which Byron so 
poetically described, even here the tram 
speeds swiftly along carrying the one- 
time weary climbers who were wont to 
travel so laboriously up the dusty roadway. 
In Europe one sees shops almost every- 
where, but I think in no other place do 
they seem to be in such numbers and 
arranged with such alluring, fascinating 
attractions, as here in Florence. They 
are absolutely irresistible and seem to be 
endowed with something of the same 
influence which the sirens exercised so 
effectually upon Ulysses. This spell in 

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these later days appears to hold the new 
woman, however, in greater thraldom 
than it did the hero of old. 

I had not been twenty-four hours in 
Florence before I found my way to the 
Piazza della Signoria, on one side of 
which stands the Palazzo Vecchio, with 
its curious old tower, so familiar to us all, 
and at right angles stands the Loggia dei 
Lanzi. In this latter are grouped Ben- 
venuto Cellini's beautiful bronze statue of 
Perseus with the head of Medusa, and 
other works of art by some of the best 
artists of Florence. It was here in this 
square, where the beautiful bronze foun- 
tain now stands, that Savonarola was 
hung and then burned at the stake. 

Upon another day we climbed to the 
little cell, far up above " the madding 
crowd," where Savonarola was confined, 
without water or food for days before his 
execution. No one will ever know all 
the tortures he endured there but not the 
least was in being confined under such 
circumstances in a cell so narrow that my 
umbrella could not pass in it lengthwise, 
while on every side were solid stone walls 
seven feet in thickness. Returning, we 

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went through the small chapel where he 
made his last confession on his way to 
the scaffold. 

At No. 14 Via della Scala we visited the 
Pharmacea, and made a small purchase of 
sachet powder, which is quite celebrated. 
The building two hundred years ago was 
the headquarters of the Inquisition. 
The dealer in perfumes, the pretty gar- 
dens, and the beautiful frescoed walls all 
looked so innocent one could hardly im- 
agine this had once been the center of so 
much injustice and bigoted intolerance. 

A visit to the Uffizi and Pitti picture 
galleries only makes one anxious to go 
again, and again, to gaze upon those mar- 
velous productions of Raphael, Michael 
Angelo, Andrea del Sarto, Botticelli, 
Correggio, Claude Lorrain, Fra Angelico, 
Giotto, Rubens, Salvator Rosa, Titian, 
Vandyck, Cimabue, and hundreds of oth- 
ers. But above them all, Raphael, it seems 
to me, stands unequaled. To enter the 
Ufizzi palace and pass on through room 
after room along its winding galleries and 
stairways, every foot of the walls hung 
with valuable paintings, sketches, por- 
traits, pictures, or engravings, still on 

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across the Arno for blocks, until we find 
the passageway has already brought us 
into the beautiful Boboli garden of the 
Pitti palace, the royal residence of the 
King and Queen when they visit Flor- 
ence, — this is to realize something of 
what the possession of great wealth and 
power means, when coupled with love of 
art. It is also interesting to know that 
these two palaces, once owned by rival 
families, now clasp hands across the Arno 
and together furnish to the present gen- 
eration perhaps the finest picture gallery 
in the world. 

One afternoon we visited the Archaeo- 
logical Museum. Among many interest- 
ing things there is a wooden chariot with 
wheels about the size of our usual light 
phaeton wheels of the present day. With 
it is the wooden bow that the chieftain 
used — the whole looking not so unlike 
an affair which might have been made 
not very long ago. Yet it is supposed 
that this vehicle, which was found in an 
Etruscan tomb, is not less than thirty- 
three hundred years old ! Evidently the 
chariot at one time was covered with 
leather but this has nearly disappeared. 

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The rooms in the palace occupied by 
the King and Queen are very beautiful 
and artistic, while the state apartments 
are magnificent. The dining table in the 
state dining-room is twelve feet wide and 
over seventy feet long. The display of 
plate and treasure, some of it very old 
and rich in jewels, is fine and interesting. 
In the building known as the Bargello — 
formerly a jail, now a museum — can be 
seen the marble Bacchus that Michael 
Angelo produced and then buried for a 
time, and later caused some workmen 
to dig and discover it. When the city 
flocked to see this newly discovered Greek 
statue, and they taunted him with the 
superiority of this over his own works, he 
quietly brought forth the hand which he 
had taken the precaution to break off be- 
fore burying it, and it was too evidently a 
fit to leave any doubt as to the real artist. 

One afternoon we visited the royal 
stables where are forty-one beautiful bay 
horses. There are historical chariots of 
the greatest magnificence one can im- 
agine, all of carved wood and gilt, with silk 
upholsterings. One was used by Victor 
Emanuel I., another by the second of 

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that name, others by the King and 
Queen on their wedding tour. This lat- 
ter especially interested me as I saw them 
when making their grand tour through 
the country upon that eventful occasion, 
and I well recalled the magnificent gilt 
and silver harness still preserved, with 
saddles for the mounted postilions who 
were dressed in white and blue silk. Be- 
sides these carriages were those used by 
Ferdinand II., Pius IX., Napoleon, and 
others, all the harnesses and trappings 
being equally fine. 

After so much pomp and circumstance 
it was a sudden change as we halted at 
the old Protestant cemetery, where we 
strolled through its quiet walks, beneath 
the tall green trees, to stand beside the 
grave of Mrs. Browning, who for so long 
a time made Florence her home, and 
where she wrote " Casa Guida Windows," 
just over which windows we had our 
rooms in 1868. 

There is a large circle of English and 
American residents here who find this 
lovely city an attractive point for a 
prolonged European stay. Florence dif- 
fers from Rome in that there are not 

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many ruins, and the grand old palaces, 
about which cluster so many historical 
associations, are still here much as they 
were five hundred years or so ago. One 
of the most interesting, the Riccardi or 
Medici, one visits and recalls how the 
great artist, Michael Angelo, when a 
youth, found here a home and encourage- 
ment for his wonderful talent from his 
wealthy patron Lorenzo de Medici. In 
the chapel the walls are covered with fine 
frescoes of great interest painted by Be- 
nozzo Gozzoli about 1460. As there was 
formerly no window, the whole was 
painted by candle light. Later a window 
was inserted which now discloses their 
exceeding beauty. The scene is that of a 
pompous procession of the Magi, with 
knights and pages in sumptuous dresses, 
and gorgeous trappings on their horses, 
winding their way through a rich land- 
scape country. The colors are almost as 
fresh as when the frescoes were painted. 

But the especial interest of Florence 
is the Duomo, or Cathedral, with its 
beautiful Campanile two hundred and 
seventy-five feet high. Cathedral and 
Campanile are both completely covered 

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with marble, as also is the baptistry 
which stands just in front with its won- 
derful bronze doors, which Michael An- 
gelo said were worthy to be the gates of 
Paradise. I was interested to note that 
on one, the frame of which has birds and 
flowers delicately intertwined, the ser- 
rated edges of the rose leaves were still 
clear and distinct as if new, though five 
hundred years of rain and storm have 
beaten upon them. 

The dome of the Cathedral is the larg- 
est in the world, even exceeding St. 
Peter's. In height it measures, from the 
point where it rests on the walls to the 
inner top, one hundred and thirty-three 
feet. It was a great problem how the 
church could be covered after the walls 
were up, and some odd propositions to 
accomplish this were made. One was to 
fill the edifice with dirt, mixing in coins, 
then, with this foundation to work upon, 
complete the roof. This done it was 
proposed to allow the dirt to be taken 
out, the laborers getting their pay by ex- 
tracting the coin. Brunelleschi, the archi- 
tect to whom was finally given the task 
of building the tower, it is said, was so 

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excited in arguing the merits of his plan, 
that the custodians were ordered to pick 
him up and carry him out from the Coun- 
cil. But one would need to write a 
book to tell of the Duomo, and my letter 
is already quite long enough. 




97 





Venice, Mar. 13, 1900. 
ISHING to keep you at 
home informed of our 
wanderings, I have en- 
deavored to give a little 
idea of them in consecu- 
tive order, and must therefore finish with 
Florence. I sent my last letter from 
there, though I am writing now from 
Venice. 

It is the privilege of the tourist when in 
Florence to visit the home of Michael 
Angelo, where he lived for so many years. 
During his long stay in Rome he retained 
his house in Florence and it was his resi- 
dence during the siege of that city in 
which he took so important a part. One 
sees there the canes he used, the sword 
he wore, a model in wax of his David, 
drawings of the ceiling of the Sistine 
Chapel and other of his works. It seems 
to bring the great sculptor, painter, archi- 
tect, soldier very near, thus to stand in 

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the room where he must have dined so 
often, and see his portrait looking down 
upon you from the wall. Close by, just 
around the corner on another street, 
stands the house where another distin- 
guished artist, Benvenuto Cellini, was 
born four hundred years ago ; and not 
far away is the house where Raphael 
made his home during his entire stay in 
Florence. 

To an American, perhaps there is 
nothing of association with these distin- 
guished men of greater interest than the 
fresco discovered about a year since in 
the church of Ognissanti. For two or 
three hundred years this fresco has been 
covered with whitewash ; that being re- 
moved, a fine painting by Ghirlandao, 
one of the most distinguished artists of 
his time, has been revealed. What is par- 
ticularly interesting about it to an Ameri- 
can is the fact, that in the group appears 
the youthful face and figure of the illus- 
trious Amerigo Vespucci. It is gratifying 
to see that, next to Raphael, he is repre- 
sented with perhaps the best face in 
Italy. 

At the time of the Columbian Exposition, 

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so much was said eulogizing Columbus at 
the expense of Vespucius, that we have 
come almost to regard him as one en- 
joying a renown that did not belong to 
him. It is interesting, therefore, to know 
that much is coming to light which shows 
that the name was rightly given, to the 
real discoverer of the continent. I was 
delighted to see that this newly discovered 
picture represents him with a face worthy 
of the land his great enterprise brought to 
light. In this same church is his family 
vault, with its now well-known name en- 
graved in marble in the floor and with it 
the family coat-of-arms. 

All over Italy one comes across sup- 
pressed monasteries. It is most interest- 
ing to visit one occasionally, and imagine 
how the monks lived and died in the 
secluded precincts of their walled en- 
closures, which have more the character 
of fortresses than homes. One, known as 
the Certosa, about three miles from 
Florence, is much visited. Living there, 
are perhaps a half dozen old gray-haired 
monks, with long white beards, but shaven 
heads. They are dressed in white flannel 
robes, white stockings, etc., and they still 

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conduct visitors through their monastery. 
Each has a small sitting-room or library, 
a bed-room, a little gallery of his own, and 
a small garden, beside the cloisters. When 
these few monks who are left shall have 
passed away, the whole property will 
come under the control of the state. We 
were impressed with the fine appearance 
of these gentle old men, who stand for an 
age that is gone. 

One of the most interesting places in 
Florence is San Marco, once the home of 
some three hundred monks, some of them 
illustrious. Here it was that Savonarola 
lived. Here his writing-desk and chair 
still remain and here one is shown the 
hair shirt which he wore. I doubt not he 
was a very good man, and yet I question 
whether we should have been altogether 
in love with him had we been favored with 
his acquaintance. However, Fra Angel- 
ico, who painted such exquisite pictures, 
no doubt loved him. What lovely pic- 
tures the monks of his day created on the 
walls of their cells and for churches else- 
where ! Surely the spirit of true worship 
must have animated and permeated their 
lives and thoughts. 

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Beside San Marco, there is the large mon- 
astery of the Dominican monks connected 
with the Santa Maria Novella church ; and 
also that of the Franciscans at the church 
and monastery of Santa Croce. The 
former were great preachers. The latter, 
as Ruskin says, taught the people how 
they should behave ; while the Black 
Friars taught them how they should 
think. 

Santa Croce is the Westminster of 
Florence. Here are the tombs of Michael 
Angelo and of Galileo ; and the floor is 
well paved with the marble slabs that 
commemorate departed worth. High up 
above the door on the interior, below the 
beautiful stained glass window, one sees 
the well-known monogram so familiar 
on our prayer-books, " I. H. S." : Jesus 
Hominum Salvator (Jesus, Saviour of 
Men). This monogram originated with 
St. Bernardino. He once reproved a 
man for printing and selling playing cards, 
which he claimed did injury. The man 
replied he must continue for the support 
of his family. St. Bernardino suggested to 
him the printing and selling of this mono- 
gram instead, which proved a great suc- 

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cess, and the saint himself afterward sold 
and distributed very many of them. 

It is in this church one sees interesting 
frescoes by Giotto ; and Ruskin says there 
is not a more perfect Gothic chapel in all 
Italy. This is saying much, for Italy is 
so full of beautiful churches and such 
marvelous works of art. The more one 
sees, the more he is amazed at the prod- 
igality of the people in this particular. 
No matter how small the town, it is sure 
to possess some worthy works that inter- 
est and attract the stranger. 

In addition to the Pitti and Uffizi 
galleries there is the Accademia delle Belle 
Arti, which contains pictures of great 
merit, to say nothing of Michael Angelo's 
statue of David, which no longer stands 
at the entrance of the Palazzo Vecchio as 
it did when I was in Florence before. 
Here is Botticelli's allegorical representa- 
tion of Spring, Tobias with the Three 
Archangels, Filippo Lippi's Coronation 
of the Virgin. Cimabue, the master of 
Giotto, is represented by his Madonna 
and Angels, Fra Angelico by his painting 
of The Last Judgment. There is Gentile 
da Fabriano's Adoration of the Kings, — 

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a marvelous painting, — Perugino's Agony 
in the Garden, pictures by Leonardo da 
Vinci and others, a collection of great 
masters, indeed. 

Near where we stayed in Florence is 
the Medicean chapel, said to have cost 
five millions of dollars. Adjoining is the 
Sacrista Nuova, wherein are the tombs 
designed by Michael Angelo for the son 
and grandson of Lorenzo the Magnificent. 
One bears the reclining figures of Night 
and Morning, the other those of Twilight 
and Dawn, the figures so greatly cele- 
brated as works of art. 

From Florence we visited Bologna. At 
the hotel, upon the night of our arrival, 
was a party of about fifty men and women, 
pilgrims to Rome. As this is jubilee 
year it is our frequent experience to meet 
expeditions of this character. While we 
were in Rome there was a party of over a 
thousand visiting St. Peter's. The city of 
Bologna is remarkably picturesque, though 
the picture gallery is disappointing, de- 
spite its one famous treasure, Raphael's 
St. Cecelia — which, in truth, was disap- 
pointing too. But the Medical University 
was interesting. Here, in the clinic of this 

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great institution the human body was 
early scientifically dissected, and the walls 
of the loggia are covered with the crests 
of illustrious men who have become 
more or less distinguished in their profes- 
sion. We hardly realize how much we are 
indebted to Italy for men of science and 
great distinction. Here Galvani, the dis- 
coverer of Galvinism lived, and in this old 
conservative institution women were first 
admitted to medical professorships. 

The Carnival was observed in Bologna 
with quite the old-time fervor and ex- 
travagance. The street for perhaps a 
mile was filled with people and maskers 
throwing confetti, flowers, and colored 
papers, fairly filling the air, while in the 
evening a grand masked ball continued 
from midnight until the morning. Soon 
after dark the maskers began promenad- 
ing the streets in great numbers and the 
amusement was kept up enthusiastically 
during the whole evening. 

Before leaving Florence we attended a 
fine ball given just before Lent by the 
Men's Club, to which foreigners were bid- 
den. The ball took place in what was 
known as the Borghese Palace, one which 

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had been given by Napoleon I. to his 
sister Pauline, and where she lived and 
died. The apartments were beautiful in 
their gilding and mirrors and frescoes. 
We were told that in the one room where 
the wax candles were used the cost of 
lighting was some twelve or thirteen hun- 
dred dollars for the one evening, or rather, 
night. We reached home at four A.M. 

But our visit at Florence was drawing 
to a close, and we hastily made an excur- 
sion to the tower of Galileo, where he was 
visited by Milton, and climbed up to the 
fortifications that Michael Angelo built 
for the protection of the city. On Wed- 
nesday morning, the last day of February, 
we said farewell to sister and Anna, who 
had both been unremitting in their kind 
endeavors to make our stay enjoyable, 
and with many adieus to friends we had 
met, started on our way, thinking of the 
pleasant reunion we trusted the summer 
would bring to us on the green banks of 
the Owasco. 



106 




Prague, Bohemia, Austria, 

March 30, 1900. 

HE close of my last journal 
letter told of our prepara- 
tions for leaving Florence, 
which we did on the last 
day of February. The 
rain, that dark morning, somewhat sug- 
gestive of tears, continued to fall even 
after our arrival at Pisa, where we had 
only a couple of hours in which to see the 
famous Cathedral, the yet more celebrated 
Leaning Tower, the Baptistry with its 
beautiful pulpit, and the Campo Santo, 
where the dead sleep in soil brought from 
the Holy Land. Then we must needs 
partake of a hurried lunch before leaving 
for Genoa. The time was too short to 
thoroughly enjoy, as we would have liked, 
all these art treasures ; but Italy is so 
prodigal in her wealth of sculpture, archi- 
tecture, and paintings, one can well af- 
ford sometimes to take a hasty look 

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and go on, for wherever one is, there is 
sure to be something well worthy of at- 
tention. Sight-seeing is always dis- 
couraging in a rainstorm and, beautiful 
as the attractions of Pisa are, I think the 
weather had a depressing effect upon our 
enthusiasm. 

However, the next morning brought 
bright sunshine, and we lost no time in 
finding our way to the well-known Villa 
Pallavicini a few miles from Genoa. It 
would take pages to describe this beautiful 
place, and I cannot pass it by without 
mentioning a few of its features of interest. 
I think I never saw grounds in such per- 
fect order. There did not seem to be a 
leaf or twig out of its place, the gravel 
walks were as if gone over that morning 
in anticipation of our coming. The thou- 
sands of camellias in bloom looked as if 
only waiting to be admired. The warm 
sunshine made the day like May, and the 
birds suggested midsummer. Though so 
early in the season, flowers appeared to be 
everywhere, and we walked and talked, 
and wound our way up the hill, lost in ad- 
miration. 

Later we entered a beautiful grotto 
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where, after a little, we took our seats in 
a boat and were rowed here and there 
among stalactites until we finally came 
out into the open, with the deep blue of 
the Mediterranean extending far in the 
distance, and the city of Genoa beside it. 
About us were beautiful statues, and just 
a line seemed to divide the little lake we 
were on, from the blue sea far beyond. 
We could only exclaim, " How beautiful ! 
beautiful ! " 

The entrance to the grounds is by the 
residence of the Prince and this is quite 
royal in appearance. As you pass, the 
door closes behind you and, looking back 
after taking a few steps, behold, instead 
of a palace, a thatched roof cottage with 
little diamond panes of glass in the 
windows such as one sees in secluded, 
picturesque English hamlets. We gave 
ourselves up to the delight of this charm- 
ing home, and wandered on without re- 
gard to time or other engagements. As 
we returned, we found that none too 
much of the day remained in which to 
enjoy the views of the city of Genoa. 
This is most interesting approached from 
the north, a noticeable feature being the 

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very extensive fortifications, and the great 
harbor with a network of shipping. 

We turned a little aside to view the 
house, No. 37 Vico dritto Ponticello, 
where it is said Columbus was born. The 
adjoining Burgo die Lanaiscola, a narrow, 
winding street, with immense high build- 
ings on either side was thronged with 
people, so much so that there appeared 
barely room to get through with our 
carriage, while overhead, stretched from 
side to side, were clothes-lines that looked 
as if they might have hanging upon them 
all the clothes in Genoa. For picturesque 
effects in streets I doubt if Genoa has its 
equal in Italy. There also are many 
beautiful private palaces, for at one time 
the city enjoyed great prosperity, and her 
wealthy citizens took pleasure in building 
princely residences. Some of these the 
traveler of to-day is permitted to visit, 
and enjoy the paintings they contain, and 
tread the beautiful marble stairways, once 
more interesting than now, in this age of 
elevators. 

We went to see what is known as the 
Rossi and the Bianco palaces, also the 
Pallavicini, which latter belongs to 

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the princely Pallavicini family, and when 
at the Campo Santo we noticed that the 
most beautiful monument there — indeed 
the only one we much admired — was 
the one bearing this same familiar name, 
we concluded the family must be one 
possessing a keen appreciation of the 
beautiful. I believe the Papal chair was 
at one time occupied by a member of this 
illustrious family. We were pained to 
learn that the present Prince, and the one 
who originated the lovely villa referred to, 
has for years been blind, and as he wan- 
ders among all that loveliness, he is com- 
pelled to enjoy only the recollection of it 
as it was familiar to him in years gone by, 
before this great affliction overtook him. 
It would seem, however, that his influence 
has not been wasted, for in no city have 
I seen such fine effects in landscape gar- 
dening as there are in Genoa, and I can- 
not but believe that the place is indebted 
to the Pallavicini family for having de- 
veloped in some degree in the people a 
love for the beautiful. 

After our brief stay in Genoa we fol- 
lowed along the Mediterranean coast as 
far as Menton, France. When I was on 

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the Riviera before, the railroad was not 
completed, and the trip was then made by 
carriage. While the railroad requires less 
time, the beauty of the route is almost 
lost to the tourist, as the tunnels are so 
frequent. The train plunges from the 
bright sunlight into the darkness, and 
vice versa, whereby the ride is really 
quite spoiled. We had a rather provok- 
ing experience passing through the Cus- 
tom House and missed our train. 
Fortunately, we were delayed only an 
hour, and as we were within a few miles' 
ride of Menton were not seriously incon- 
venienced. 

Arriving at the St. Maria Hotel we found 
rooms in readiness. Mrs. Putnam and 
Mary had kindly ordered fires built and 
had placed flowers on the table to wel- 
come us. Sunday morning we awoke 
with the blue sea before our windows, and 
such golden sunshine as one dreams of 
but seldom sees at this season of the year. 
It was a lovely Sunday. We attended a 
delightful Sabbath service, stopping as we 
came out of the hotel door on our way to 
church to admire the flowers and smell 
the perfume of the roses and geraniums. 

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It was as if we had stepped into the midst 
of summer days. 

Menton is an ideal place for a winter 
sojourn. We walked up in the afternoon 
to the Hotel d'ltalia, for a cup of tea, with 
friends there, and found it a most enchant- 
ing spot, a little farther removed from the 
sea and the surging of the waves and 
hence more quiet. 

We took train Monday morning for 
Nice, of which one hears so often, and 
where one sees much of dress and fashion. 
You feel at once that you are in France, 
" la belle France." You can but think of 
her as a more favored sister than Italia, 
wealthier, healthier, and more prosperous, 
but somehow your love and sympathy is 
for the less favored one. The very horses 
in the street suggest you have crossed the 
line into another country ; they are larger, 
more sleek, better cared for. The soldiers 
somehow fill your mind with visions of 
the grand army under the great Napoleon. 
They are larger than the Italians and 
look " Frenchy." What is it ? Can any 
one tell? You would know they were 
Frenchmen ; they look so strong and 
self-reliant. 

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As you see this sunny France so pros- 
perous you do not wonder that she so 
soon paid off the enormous sum that Ger- 
many demanded of her at the close of that 
unfortunate war — two billions of dollars 
I think it was, a sum so great we cannot 
comprehend it, and one which even the 
German Emperor had not the hardihood 
to propose. It took the cold-hearted, 
iron chancellor to suggest such terrible 
terms. 

After a little drive about Nice, a walk 
on the promenade, and luncheon at Lon- 
don House, we drove to Monte Carlo. A 
more beautiful place one can hardly im- 
agine, and such a variety of life ! Such 
pretty women, and such homely ones ; 
faces strange, anxious, odd, interesting ! 
Some of the women were smoking. We 
returned to Menton for the night and went 
back to Monte Carlo in the morning to 
visit the gambling rooms ; Mrs. Putnam 
and Mary and Miss Lewis accompanied us, 
so there were seven in our party. We drove 
to the Prince's palace, which is located at 
Monaco, a little beyond Monte Carlo from 
Menton. The palace, which is fine, is 
situated on a high bluff. The whole place 

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is like a park and the income from the 
gambling bank is so great that in con- 
sequence there are no taxes for residents 
to pay. 

We obtained permission to enter the 
gambling rooms, and it was a strange sight 
to see the rapidity with which the money 
changed hands. The lowest sum one can 
venture is five francs, and the highest 
about four thousand dollars at a time. The 
money is laid down on the table and in less 
time than I can write of it 'tis either lost or 
won, or rather, both lost and won. I saw 
one elderly gentleman with gray hair lay 
down five hundred dollars, and in almost 
an instant he lost the whole. He left the 
table immediately. I myself felt no incli- 
nation to play, feeling that should I lose I 
should not feel pleased, and if I won I 
should be more unhappy still, with a sense 
of having in my possession a thing I had no 
business with. Indeed after a little while 
I was glad to get away. One feels one's 
self in an atmosphere that is most uncon- 
genial. The beautiful rows of delicate 
primroses that border the walk to the 
door appear so incongruous that you im- 
agine their innocence reproaches you for 

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not interceding to rescue them from such 
a place. 

In contrast with Monte Carlo, the next 
day a party of ten of us made an excur- 
sion up into the mountains back of Men- 
ton. A glorious trip ! We had an ample 
number of donkeys and carriages to con- 
vey us, and with sunshine and bracing 
mountain air in abundance, there was no 
lack of appetite for our luncheon in the 
little chalet at the top of the pass. The 
next day we bade adieu to the Riviera 
and returning to Genoa, reached Milan 
before bedtime. So we were once more 
back in Italy where we have found so 
much to enjoy. 




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1 ' ' ' ' ■ ' 




Prague, Bohemia, Austria, 

March 31, 1900. 

HAVE just finished a jour- 
nal letter which brings us 
to the time of our arrival 
at Milan, and will now con- 
tinue my story by telling 
of our brief stay there. It was a pleasant 
morning when we went for the first time 
to see the beautiful Gothic Cathedral. It 
is of white marble, though a good deal 
blackened by age, and as we stood and 
gazed at the marvelous exterior it seemed 
as if the whole structure were of lace sus- 
pended in air, so delicate and intricate is 
every foot of the vast surface, including 
the sides and roof. 

The interior too was marvelously beau- 
tiful. The general effect is in keeping 
with the exterior: delicate, impressive, 
grand. The sunlight illumined the stained 
glass windows and shed a softened light 
upon the immense throng that half filled 

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the nave as they stood and listened to the 
earnest preaching from the pulpit. We 
found our way to the tower stair and 
climbed to the roof, where we walked the 
length of the nave, passing under the fly- 
ing buttresses. Mabel wished much to 
climb to the top of the spire but was 
finally persuaded to leave that for her 
next visit. It is said one can view from 
there on a clear day the Alps to the north 
and the Adriatic on the east, but that 
morning the air was not clear enough for 
such distant sight-seeing. 

After our visit to the Cathedral we went 
to see the justly celebrated fresco of the 
Last Supper by Leonardo da Vinci, origi- 
nally one of the finest paintings in the 
world. Unfortunately it is on the walls 
of a refectory where Napoleon quartered 
some of his soldiers when in possession 
of Milan, and evidently these men en- 
tertained themselves by pricking the 
painted walls with the points of their 
bayonets. The beauty of this marvelous 
work of art is sadly impaired, but enough 
is left to impress the beholder with the 
feeling of its great superiority, and one is 
pained to think that such a treasure from 

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the hand of this great artist, of whose 
work so little remains to us, could not 
have been preserved. Are we to con- 
clude that Napoleon, great as he was, was 
not great enough to appreciate this work 
of art, or was it simply one of the inevi- 
table incidents of war? Fortunately, the 
face of the Christ, which is here much 
damaged, is preserved to us elsewhere. 
There is another portrait by the same 
artist which somewhat resembles that in 
the Last Supper; and this is the most 
satisfactory painting of our Saviour that 
I have ever seen, the only one that ever 
appeared to me to approach what might 
be a correct conception of those divine 
features. 

We left Milan the next morning for 
Lake Como, that most beautiful of Italian 
lakes. At Como, before we boarded a 
little steamer, we visited the Cathedral. 
There we were interested in seeing, on 
each side the entrance door, the marble 
statues of the Plinys, the elder and the 
younger. It appears that Como was their 
birthplace ; and if these carvings are cor- 
rect, one is led to the conclusion that both 
were unusually intellectual looking men. 

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The ride by steamer to Bellagio, half 
way up the lake, was beautiful beyond 
description, and our stay at this almost 
heavenly spot seemed then, as now, more 
like a dream than a reality. We arrived 
there Saturday noon. Sunday was a 
glorious day and the blue sky reflected in 
the still bluer waters of the lake was 
softened by the circle of snow-capped 
mountains that surrounded us. The Sab- 
bath stillness, the beautiful grounds of 
the hotel, of no inconsiderable extent, 
the many flowers — primroses blooming 
everywhere — a feeling of summer time 
that prevailed, all combined to foster a 
feeling of peacefulness and joy. 

There was no English preaching, it 
being too early in the season, so I at- 
tended a brief Catholic service. It was 
enough to feel it was Christian and that 
they worshipped the same loving Creator. 
The church was quite full, and the priest, 
an earnest one, seemed to have the re- 
spectful attention of his hearers. There 
were many children present : some seated 
on little stools at the feet of their parents 
and holding in their hands prayer-books 
which they fondly handled. Quite a 

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number occupied the steps at the foot of 
the pulpit leading up to the altar, the 
boys on one side, and girls on the other, 
leaving room for an aisle between them. 
The service seemed in keeping with the 
beautiful surroundings, and I sat with 
them for a time, then quietly withdrew, 
feeling I had been benefited by the little 
"meeting together" in that "unknown 
tongue." I doubt if there was one who 
could have conversed with me in English. 

From Milan, to which place we re- 
turned, we went on Monday to the far- 
famed city of Venice. It was dark as we 
approached and crossed the long causeway 
that extends for a mile and a half from 
the mainland into the Adriatic, where the 
"Bride of the Sea" awaits the crowd of 
tourists that visit her and throng her 
palace doors. We found a busy swarm of 
gondolas awaiting our arrival and, secur- 
ing one, were soon wending our way along 
the Grand Canal, and narrower ones as 
well, on the way to our hotel. 

We were a week in Venice, and how 
can I describe the charm and novelty of 
this mysterious place, where never a horse 
or carriage is seen upon the streets, where 

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the silent gondolas glide about, the still- 
ness only broken by the warning shout of 
the gondolier as he nears a turn ; where 
the salt sea waves, rising and falling with 
the tide, wash the marble steps of hun- 
dreds of palaces, sometimes far up 
within the portico and again bathing 
the lowest step, where the green seaweed 
floats upon the surface in long pendants 
as if at home upon the blue-green waters. 
How can I tell of those moonlight eve- 
nings where music from the occupants of 
many a gondola lent its charm to the 
wonderful spell which Venice always casts 
over her worshippers. No ! One can not 
tell all this. It can only, when seen, be 
understood and appreciated. 

St. Mark's, more beautiful than ever, im- 
pressed me as more essentially a Christian 
home, a place of prayer, a house of God, 
than any other church edifice I have ever 
seen. And when on Sunday morning I 
learned from Dr. Robertson, the Presby- 
terian minister at Venice, that St. Mark's 
was more truly a Protestant structure, in 
a way, I was the more interested in it. 
He said it was a peculiarity of St. Mark's 
that Christ and not the Virgin Mary was 

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the distinguishing feature, and that the 
Virgin Mary was everywhere represented 
as worshipping the Saviour. Until within 
a comparatively brief period the Pope 
has had no authority over St. Mark's, 
and the mosaics are everywhere such 
as would be appropriate for a Protestant 
edifice. 

We all enjoyed our walks in the Piazza 
and Piazette, under the shadow of the 
Lion of St. Mark, watching the flock of 
pigeons that flutter about and admiring 
the windows of the little shops that no- 
where else seem more fascinating. On 
the occasion of the King's birthday a 
grand review of the military took place 
there, which we were fortunate enough to 
witness from some windows on the second 
floor that were kindly assigned to us for 
our occupancy. 

Venice is the place of all others in which 
to see the paintings of Titian, Tintoretto, 
Paul Veronese, and Bellini. In the Doge's 
palace one sees Tintoretto at his best. 
We crossed the Bridge of Sighs and visited 
the prison cells; saw near the ceiling in 
the great council rooms the long row of 
portraits of illustrious Doges. There is 

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one blank spot where the face of one ma- 
gistrate has been blotted out because of 
the crimes he was known to have com- 
mitted. Alas, the faces of these old Doges 
do not appeal to me. They appear hard, 
cruel, cunning. I did not see one with 
whom I felt I should have cared to come 
into very close relation. 

One day we were privileged to visit the 
palace of Robert Browning. His son was 
away, but it was interesting to see this 
home of the illustrious poet and to be 
brought into such close association with 
his one-time surroundings. 

I will not attempt to tell you of all our 
visiting of churches, picture galleries, lace 
factories, etc., as I fear you would find it 
tedious to follow us longer. It would 
take a volume to do Venice justice. It 
must be seen to be appreciated it is so un- 
like anything else. Its marvelous history 
will never cease to interest and entrance 
its visitors, and it has a fascination all its 
own from which one turns reluctantly 
away, even as our beloved and honored 
American, Phillips Brooks, has written, 
when about to leave Venice, December r, 
1882: 

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As one who parts from Life's familiar shore, 
Looks his last look in long beloved eyes, 
And sees in their dear depths new mean- 
ings rise 

And strange light shine he never knew before ; 

As then he fain would snatch from Death his 
hand 
And linger still if haply he may see 
A little move of this soul's mystery 

Which year by year he seemed to understand ; 

So, Venice, when thy wondrous beauty grew 
Dim in the clouds which clothed the wintry 
sea, 

I saw thou wert more beauteous than I knew, 
And longed to turn and be again with thee, 

But what I could not then, I trust to see 

In that next life which we call memory. 




125 




Berlin, April 13, 1900. 

Y last letter brought our 
wanderings to the close of 
our stay at Venice. On 
March 20th, bidding adieu 
to our pleasant quarters 
at the Grand Britania hotel, we entered 
our gondola in the Grand Canal and at a 
little after two in the afternoon were fast 
speeding from Venice toward Trieste. A 
little before dark we approached a small 
stream which we knew to be the dividing 
line between Italy and Austria, and it was 
not without a pang that we thought how 
soon our fair dream of Italy would be 
ended and the three beautiful months of 
our sojourn there a thing of the past. 

Italy's world of beauty, its history, its 
art, its golden sunshine, the kind hearts 
of the people we had found, seemed to 
rise before us and made us feel we were 
shutting out a wealth of treasure which 
henceforth would be to us only a memory 

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of a lovely past. In our thoughts we ex- 
perienced something of the same feelings 
so beautifully expressed in those exquisite 
verses by Christina Rossetti when leaving 
the Italy so dearly beloved by her : 

Farewell, land of love, Italy, 

Sister-land of Paradise — 
With my own feet I have trodden thee, 

Have seen with my own eyes — 
I remember, thou forgettest me, 

I remember thee. 

Blessed be the land that warms my heart, 
And the kindly clime that cheers, 

And the cordial faces clear from art, 
And the tongue sweet in mine ears — 

Take my heart, its truest tenderest part, 
Dear land, take my tears. 

We were already across the line and 
the change in architecture, the white resi- 
dences, a new language, a different people, 
announced to us that we were in the 
sombre skies and cooler atmosphere of a 
more northern clime. 

It was long after dark when we entered 
Trieste and found rooms at the solemn, 
stately, chilling hotel Delorme. It had 

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poor attendance and high prices, a less 
palatable cuisine than we had been en- 
joying in Italy. While at supper my 
railroad tickets, which I had purchased to 
Vienna, were brought to me, as the rail- 
road official had found he had no business 
to have taken them. I had endeavored 
to convince him of this at the station but 
without success. So, recalling the well- 
known saying, " the stupid Austrians," I 
had yielded to his demand, knowing it 
would all come out right in the end, for 
these men are honest— if anything — and 
are held to strict account. They are not 
anxious about a change in administration, 
for so long as they do their duty they 
hold their places, and if a mistake is made 
no time is lost in correcting it. Our 
trunks passed the Customs without much 
examination and with little trouble to us. 
The next morning I awoke with a sort 
of presentiment that the object of our 
visit to Trieste was not to be attained ; 
though I had made inquiry in Venice and 
was assured there was no trouble in gain- 
ing admission to the palace of Miramar, 
once the home of Maximilian. Upon 
making further inquiry I was told, with an 

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exclamation, of the utter uselessness of 
trying. " Impossible ! no one could enter 
the palace either that day or the next." 
It was occupied by the Archduchess 
Stephania, widow of the Crown Prince 
Rudolph, whose tragic death so shocked 
the world. Her marriage with a German 
Prince, not of royal blood, though a mem- 
ber of Parliament, was about to take place, 
and she was then to relinquish her royal 
honors. Until the wedding was solemn- 
ized and the bride and groom had departed, 
it was doubtful if the President of the 
United States himself could gain admis- 
sion. 

These and other facts I learned during 
an interview held with our Consul, Mr. 
Hossfield, to whom I at once applied in 
the vain hope that there might be a pos- 
sibility of seeing at least a portion of 
Miramar. While this is one of the most 
beautiful of homes, it is intimately asso- 
ciated with several of the most unhappy 
and illustrious personages of the present 
century : Maximilian, the hero of Mexico 
during our Civil War ; Carlotta his wife, 
who for over thirty years has been insane ; 
the Crown Prince Rudolph and his wife ; 

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the murdered Empress Elizabeth, whose 
home it was and Napoleon Third and his 
unhappy Queen Eugenie. Mr. Hossfield 
was most kind, and interested himself in 
our behalf as though he alone was the 
one interested, but he said even the com- 
mandant of Trieste would not dare ask 
for permission to enter Miramar until the 
afternoon of the day following the wed- 
ding. He suggested, however, that we 
take a row-boat, the day being calm, row 
along the shore of the Adriatic, and get a 
view of Miramar from the water. The 
view from the land, should we drive there, 
would be altogether unsatisfactory ; we 
would really see nothing. He said there 
were many newspaper reporters in Trieste 
who would give a great deal to obtain 
entrance, but Stephania had granted only 
one interview and that to a lady con- 
nected with some paper ; even the exact 
time of the wedding was unknown, the 
day uncertain. 

Mr. Hossfield, by the way, was the first 
American to take Admiral Dewey by the 
hand upon his return from Manila. He 
gave us a very interesting account of this 
meeting, that evening, he having accepted 

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our invitation to dine with us at the 
hotel. He was so enthusiastic about a 
trip he had taken along the east shore of 
the Adriatic as far as Montenegro, that 
we should have been tempted to take the 
trip ourselves had not our limited time 
forbidden the expedition. One would re- 
quire about ten days, but he assured us 
he would rather see this bit of country, 
outside the more general route of travel- 
ers, than all Germany combined. 

The boat-ride was a most happy sug- 
gestion and we greatly enjoyed it. We 
had two oarsmen and a sail (which latter 
was useless both going and coming). The 
time spent each way was about an hour 
and a half in duration, with Miramar and 
its wooded mountain or hillside continu- 
ously in view. It is perhaps the most 
beautiful residence we have ever seen. It 
stands on a rocky promontory, on each 
side of which is a little bay, the waters 
clear as crystal and of most exquisite hues, 
varying from deep blue to emerald green, 
and so pellucid that it is said one can see 
sixty feet into its depths. The clear-cut 
outlines of the white stone palace rise 
majestically above the dark brown rocks. 

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Beyond are the gardens, than which, per- 
haps, none more beautiful, of the same 
extent, are to be found in Europe. 
Maximilian lived here for two years in a 
small house, still standing. From this he 
superintended the building of this de- 
lightful residence where he might have 
lived a life of almost unalloyed happiness 
with his devoted wife. But temptation 
came to him in the form of ambition. He 
was a descendant of a long line of illus- 
trious kings and rulers. His brother was 
an Emperor, his wife fitted to hold royal 
sway. How great to be master of a king- 
dom, one of the oldest in history on the 
continent of America ! What possibili- 
ties it opened up, backed, as he was, by 
one of the most powerful of European 
Emperors, Napoleon Third. The very 
name was an inspiration. He might yet 
hold in his hand the destiny of the west- 
ern continent, for our Civil War was at its 
height. What attractions of home could 
outweigh honors such as these ? He 
yielded, alas, and his untimely death by 
execution is one of the saddest events in 
modern history. Its sequence is the 
ruined life of his wife, who it is said still 

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awaits his coming, unwilling to believe 
him dead. 

It has been intimated that Maximilian's 
brother, the Emperor Francis Joseph, was 
jealous of Maximilian's superior qualities, 
and favored his going to Mexico. It is 
even said that he is now in a measure re- 
sponsible for the restrictions imposed upon 
Carlotta, who may be less deranged than 
is claimed. This because there are such 
large money considerations involved. 
Next to the Czar of Russia, Francis 
Joseph is said to be the wealthiest man in 
the world today. But all these things 
are mere rumors and the truth would be 
hard to obtain. " People will talk " but 
here they must do it under their breath. 
If overheard they are likely to be arrested 
and called to account. Neither the Em- 
peror of Austria nor of Germany is to be 
trifled with, no matter what one's rank. 

I must not forget to say that as we ap- 
proached Miramar a boat came out with 
two guards and bade us not come too 
near. However, after they left us we 
went as near as was necessary to get a 
good view of the exterior. With my 
glass we could actually see into the open 

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window of one of the upper rooms, where 
were two persons, ladies evidently, taking a 
good look at us through their own opera 
glass. We only wished we might think 
one of them to be the Archduchess, the 
other her daughter Elizabeth ; but of this 
we had no evidence and much to the 
contrary. 

In a little cove beyond we landed and 
learned from the proprietor of an inn 
there that his business had suffered sadly 
for three weeks past, during which the 
occupancy of Miramar had diverted travel- 
ers from visiting his house. We saw sev- 
eral carriages approach the entrance along 
the road from Trieste but they were 
turned about by the sentinel at the en- 
trance gate. A company of Swiss guards 
was in attendance at the palace. 

So much for our visit to Miramar, a spot 
in which I have long felt much interest since 
seeing a photograph of it in Mr. Alward's 
room. I think one of his Austrian friends 
who knew Maximilian well and spent 
more or less time there gave it to him. 
Then the reading of The Martyrdom of 
an Empress added to the interest I felt, 
and last summer Byron kindly gave me a 

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picture of the place in the Life of Max- 
imilian. 

The next morning we left Trieste at an 
early hour, being called at six. Mr. Hoss- 
field kindly came to the station to see us 
"off and presented the ladies with violets. 
His kindness was all we could ask and far 
more than we expected. Our route was 
by rail over the Semmering, one of the 
most beautiful mountain passes in Europe. 
I had long been desirous of making the 
journey and anticipated the trip with 
great pleasure. We arranged to stop near 
the top overnight. We arrived at Sem- 
mering soon after dark and in a carriage 
drove to the hotel, with snow banks three 
or four feet in depth on either side. The 
hotel was a delightful one, the rooms 
warmed by steam, with heavy, comfort- 
able looking red hangings in front of the 
lower half of the windows. The house 
was brightly lighted by electricity, which 
made it look most inviting, far up in that 
mountain air. We watched for the morn- 
ing in expectation of a view of grand 
mountain scenery, but alas ! upon looking 
out of our window a thick falling snow 
shut off every pleasing distant prospect. 

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Though later in the morning the sun 
nearly made its way through the misty 
air and enlivened the scene for a little 
while, it soon vanished, and the storm 
closed in again. As we descended through 
the wonderful galleries that were at the 
time of their construction, some fifty years 
since, considered a marvellous bit of en- 
gineering, the snow changed to mist and 
cloud, which made our entry into Vienna 
in a lightly falling rain anything but cheer- 
ful, to say nothing of our disappointment 
in not having had a better view of the 
Semmering. Bright, beautiful Vienna, of 
which we had heard so much, was far from 
pleasing in a storm of sleet mixed with 
snow. The streets were uninviting to 
look at and uncomfortable to travel in. 
Our beautiful Italy was sadly missed ! We 
were in a land of snow and cold, and " the 
winter of our discontent " was at hand. 
But Vienna must wait for another letter. 




136 




Paris, May 7, 1900. 
UR arrival at Vienna was, as 
I have told you, in a snow- 
storm mingled with rain, 
which, with dark, lowering 
clouds, continued more or 
less during the whole of our visit. It was 
not calculated to make our impression one 
compatible with the brilliancy which is 
usually associate with the metropolis of 
Austria. Nevertheless the grand build- 
ings, the broad streets, the throngs of well 
dressed people, the beautiful shop win- 
dows, all combined, despite the weather, 
to make a most favorable impression. 

Vienna is a city of magnificent distances, 
and a drive in the Prado and a view of the 
broad Danube, sweeping with its resistless 
tide onward toward Constantinople, but 
served to deepen the impression. One 
can but feel attached to the Austrians 
upon short acquaintance. They somehow 
appeal to your sympathy while you are 

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perhaps annoyed at their simplicity. The 
term " stupid Austrians " does not seem 
altogether a misnomer. They are so po- 
lite it becomes oppressive, and yet they 
expect a remuneration for everything, no 
matter how trifling the favor. 

The beautiful picture-gallery of Vienna 
is one of the city's chief attractions to 
strangers, and the building itself is gor- 
geous, with its marble walls and columns 
which are enriched with much gilding. 
The whole museum is of great extent. In 
contrast with Italian galleries, they have 
very elaborate provision for warming these 
buildings, which we were prepared to ap- 
preciate after the many days spent wander- 
ing with half frozen feet, admiring the 
paintings in cold churches and public halls 
of Italy. 

Among the great mass of works by il- 
lustrious artists we were much interested 
in some half dozen portraits of the cele- 
brated Marie Theresa, by Velasquez. 
These picture her as a child, at different 
ages, and one could but love the little 
girl as one admires the heroic woman in 
her later long and eventful life. One is 
glad to know that she had reached its 

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close before the terrible experiences of 
the French Revolution overtook her beau- 
tiful daughter, Marie Antoinette, else how- 
great would have been her suffering. 

As we drove by the old palace and 
through one of its immense courts, our 
attention was directed to the apartments 
she occupied, and later, when we visited 
the Capuchin Vault (the burial receptacle 
of the Hapsburgs for generations), the huge 
sarcophagus which contains the remains 
of herself and husband is the first that 
attracts attention upon descending the 
stairs. Near by one sees the sarcophagus 
containing the body of Maximilian. Ad- 
miral Tegethoff went to Mexico at the 
Emperor's request and brought the re- 
mains to Vienna after Maximilian's un- 
timely execution.* Farther on, is the 
sarcophagus of the Duke of Reichstadt, 
the son of Napoleon I. ; that of Joseph 
II. ; and one of the late Empress Eliza- 
beth, assassinated at Geneva two years or 

* By invitation of my friend Dennis R. Alward I spent an 
evening, when in Vienna in 1868, with him and the great Austrian 
Admiral who was a warm personal friend of Mr. Alward's. His 
account of adventures connected with the recovery of the body of 
the ill-fated Emperor Maximilian was most thrilling. I recall his 
remarking that he had ample time to reflect upon the mutability 
of human affairs while traveling the rugged mountain trails in 

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so ago. Another one contains the remains 
of the Crown Prince Rudolph. All these, 
and many others, stand side by side, row 
after row, and a volume could be written 
of each. 

In one of the public squares near the 
Prado is a magnificent monument erected 
in honor of Admiral TegethorT, a man 
whose single word had caused the sinking 
of one of Italy's finest warships and two 
thousand of her seamen found a watery 
grave. 

The opera at Vienna is fine. One of 
Wagner's best productions was to be seen 
soon after our arrival and we desired much 
to attend, but not a seat could be had at 
any price. We were told that sometimes 
every desirable place is taken by regular 
subscribers before the ticket office is open 
to the public. The entertainments com- 
mence at seven, doors open at six-thirty, 
and the opera over before ten o'clock. 

Mexico, where it was often too dangerous to ride his mule, follow- 
ing the casket containing the remains of Maximilian which he 
had rescued from a tour for purposes of public exhibition. The 
glass over the face was broken and he himself entertained grave 
doubts of ever reaching the coast. Later followed an account of 
his final arrival in Vienna, and the visit of the Emperor Francis 
Joseph to the Capuchin Vault, the Admiral being his only at 
tendant companion. 

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If one is not in his place when the music 
commences it is not possible to enter until 
the close of the first act. When the con- 
ductor of the orchestra taps with his 
baton, instantly there is perfect silence. 
One could almost hear a pin drop. There 
are no responses to encores ; this is so 
that there may be no favoritism shown. 
The players are on the best of terms with 
each other and often the best singers take 
quite inferior parts, sometimes half a dozen 
famous ones being on the stage at one 
time. 

I called upon Dr. Robert Willson, son 
of Judge Willson of Philadelphia, a very 
promising young physician who is spend- 
ing several months in Vienna studying, 
and we all much enjoyed meeting him. 
We learned from him something about 
the large hospitals which abound here. 
There seems to be more sickness in this 
city than elsewhere and facilities quite 
beyond those extended to strangers in 
other European cities are here offered for 
witnessing the treatment of all kinds of 
diseases. Dr. Willson informed us that 
so much sickness was probably owing in 
large part to the crowding of the poor 

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people into confined quarters ; too many 
live in a single room and without proper 
sanitary provisions. All deaths in hos- 
pitals are followed by an autopsy. To 
this rule there are no exceptions. 

I was much disappointed in failing to 
catch a glimpse of the Emperor, Francis 
Joseph. Katharine and I were walking 
along the street one day when her quick 
eye recognized the Emperor through the 
window of the coupe in which he was 
driving, but before she could communicate 
the fact to me, the rapidly moving car- 
riage had whirled him by and I could only 
see the vehicle with the white-plumed sol- 
dier beside the coachman on the box. So 
now when I mention the fact that we saw 
the Emperor, you will understand how it 
was. His grey hair tells the story of ad- 
vancing years and when he passes away 
many predict a revolution in Austria. 
The Bohemians, Hungarians and others 
all wish to have their own governments. 

We paid a visit to the Royal stables, 
which are magnificent ones. Three hun- 
dred horses — and such beautiful creatures 
— were groomed so that their necks and 
sides fairly shone. Each stall was about 

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nine feet wide, every animal was as com- 
fortable as good care, warm stables and 
blankets, with plenty to eat, could make 
him. But when one sees the trappings, 
the harnesses, etc., it quite takes the 
breath away ! We were shown a large 
saddle-cloth of the most exquisite heavy 
gold embroidery, made by Marie Theresa 
herself, and the harnesses are beyond de- 
scription in their gorgeousness. 

There are chariots for state occasions, 
some of them of historical interest. One 
was used by Napoleon when in Vienna. 
There are huge black affairs for funeral 
events, with black harnesses to match, 
and then immense numbers of beautiful 
modern vehicles for every-day use. We 
were allowed to go into the large riding- 
room where eight or ten youths of titled 
families were taking their afternoon lesson 
in horsemanship. In the museum we saw 
a wonderful collection of old armor, with 
spears such as were used in tournaments, 
and many weapons with histories. There 
were sabres that looked as if it would re- 
quire two men to handle them ; guns 
now obsolete, with flint-locks and other 
equipments. 

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One of the pleasant attractions of 
Vienna is a visit to Schftnbrunn, the 
suburban palace of the royal family, with 
its extensive park and gardens. We were 
privileged to go through the palace, 
which was associated in my mind with 
much I had read of the present Emperor 
and the late Empress, the Crown Prince 
and others. This was a favorite home of 
Marie Theresa. In one little room are 
framed pictures done by her children 
when young and doing them much credit. 
We were interested in the room occupied 
by Napoleon, the same in which his son 
the Duke of Reichstadt died. The day 
before, the Emperor had been there and 
we concluded he was on his way when we 
saw him. Unfortunately, the rain pre- 
vented our walking or driving in the 
grounds, which, as we could see from the 
windows, were beautiful. 

One peculiarity of Vienna, quite in con- 
trast with most other cities, is that soon 
after twelve or one o'clock at night the 
lights in the streets are extinguished and 
every one is supposed to be at home. 

We had anticipated when there, taking 
a steamer down the Danube as far as 

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Budapest, but found that our limited time 
would not admit of this. So reluctantly 
we pushed on to Prague despite a severe 
snowstorm that prevailed. All the ac- 
counts we had of Budapest served to in- 
crease our desire to see it ; some assured 
us it exceeded the splendor even of 
Vienna, in the grandeur of its buildings 
and streets. 




i4S 



Hlcx»x* 

HPT** 
Hlx4ix. 


M 

Ira** 
SS^x* 



Ouchey, Lake Geneva, 
Hotel du Chateau 

May 24, 1900. 

FIND myself so far in ar- 
rears with my journal that 
unless I set about improv- 
ing all the rainy days by 
writing I fear the task of 
catching up will soon become hopeless. 
I wrote last of our leaving Vienna in a 
snowstorm, which continued all the way 
to Prague in Bohemia, where the storm 
increased rather than abated. 

The morning after our arrival the hotel 
porter was sure it would be impossible to 
get about the city with a carriage on ac- 
count of the snow. " It would be quite 
useless to make the attempt." But he 
little understood the energetic character 
of the party with which he had to deal — 
that is the feminine portion of it. 

Without discussing the matter with him 
we quietly obtained the services of an 

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efficient commissionaire, directed him to 
engage a carriage and, as I had on a former 
visit familiarized myself with the interest- 
ing features of the quaint old city, I put 
the rest of the party under the care of the 
guide, requesting him to occupy the seat 
inside that otherwise would have been 
mine. Thus equipped the ladies started 
out to combat the storm which seemed 
still to increase in severity, while I was 
glad to seek shelter within doors and write 
home of our doings. Soon after noon the 
four returned, full of enthusiasm at having 
successfully " done " the place, and that 
in spite of the storm and the hotel porter. 
Soon after luncheon we were again on 
the train and speeding toward Dresden, 
where we arrived before dark, having out- 
ridden the snowstorm, of which we have 
seen nothing since. At Dresden we went 
at once to our old quarters at the Hotel 
du Nord, but here, as elsewhere, the years 
have brought changes and the kindly face 
of Herr Nahke, who was wont to greet us 
at the door, no longer appeared, he having 
years ago passed away. In his place stood 
his two stalwart sons, who were boys when 
we were here before. The hotel, then 

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new, has lost its first look, of freshness, 
and has taken on the dusky shade of age 
and wear, rendering it less attractive. 

Dresden, too, we found much changed. 
An elegant depot and an elevated track 
has replaced the simple arrangements 
which we recall, when upon that depress- 
ing April morning fourteen years ago I 
bade adieu to the dear forms and faces I 
loved so much and started on my long 
journey home across the sea, having a few 
hours before received the unwelcome and 
melancholy telegram announcing the se- 
rious illness of my dear brother. 

On Sunday we attended service at the 
little church where we were wont to go, 
but were saddened indeed to see the kind- 
hearted minister, Mr. Bowden, who once 
appeared the embodiment of manly vigor 
and whose visit we had so much enjoyed 
in America in the summer of 1886, now 
so feeble. It was with no little difficulty 
that he ascended the pulpit steps, and his 
trembling voice gave additional evidence 
of advancing years and ill health. 

During the few days of our stay in 
Dresden we were again impressed with 
the attractions the city offers for a pro- 

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longed stay when one is seeking a quiet 
life with intelligent occupation. The 
wonderful picture gallery seemed more 
beautiful than ever, and its great central 
prize, the Madonna de San Sisto, grows 
even more divine in its artistic revelations. 
The opera still offers its attractions to 
lovers of music. The fine opera house, 
its early hours, its always appreciative 
audience, combine to make the entertain- 
ment most enjoyable and instructive. 

Dresden, like all German cities, is grow- 
ing rapidly, and fast becoming a great 
manufacturing town. I was somewhat 
unprepared for the rather bitter feeling 
one finds existing against the English. 
When one says English, rather out of 
courtesy than otherwise, it is in distinc- 
tion from American. But in truth I 
think that at heart there is really little 
difference and the feeling is much the 
same toward both nationalities. The Ger- 
mans as a nation are, I fear, a little in- 
clined to jealousy, and they no doubt 
look with no small degree of envy upon 
other countries that are more than keep- 
ing pace with them. I had an interesting 
conversation with our representative, Mr. 

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Cole, on this subject, and I thought his 
ideas wise and sensible. He deprecated 
any action on our part as a nation or as 
individuals to arouse a spirit of animosity, 
on the contrary, he would have everything 
done to conciliate. The encouragement 
of a feeling of kindness and friendliness 
might lead to much good, whereas a spirit 
of boasting and discourtesy serves but to 
create discord and unhappy results. Of 
one thing we may be assured, whoever 
thinks Germany a small factor in the com- 
ing history of the world greatly under- 
estimates the nation's importance. This 
fact is the more emphasized upon one's 
arrival in the great city of Berlin. 

My old Murray's Guide Book, published 
in i860, gives the population of Berlin 
about 450,000. Now it is little less than 
two millions and growing rapidly, destined 
to be a city of immense population. It 
seems to me the general condition of the 
Empire promises more for future stability 
than almost any European country. The 
royal family holds a relation to the people 
that is quite unique. It is buttressed with 
an ancestry remarkable for personal worth, 
while the present Emperor commands a 

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position altogether invincible in the hearts 
of his people. He is both honored and 
respected, while the Crown Prince prom- 
ises all that his followers could hope for. 
Berlin as a city is beautiful to behold. 
Its streets are clean, the people well 
dressed and a general appearance of pros- 
perity prevails everywhere. The military 
feature which used to seem a little op- 
pressive, is now less conspicuous, while 
the presence of the Court gives a degree 
of life and animation to the city which is 
fascinating. 

Like all travelers we were curious to 
see the Emperor, William II., of whom we 
hear so much, and soon after our arrival 
we started out for a walk along " Unter 
den Linden." Soon Katharine thought 
she saw indications of unusual activity 
toward the Brandenburg gate and just as 
we reached there, there was a sudden ap- 
pearance of excitement among the guard. 
Almost before we could get ourselves in 
position for observation there came rapidly 
toward the gate a beautiful carriage that 
passed within six feet of us, in which sat 
the Emperor in military dress, and in less 
time than I am writing it he was far down 

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the street receiving the salutations of the 
immense crowd that thronged the city's 
principal avenue. 

A day or two later we were in the Thier 
Garten when we had a second look at the 
Kaiser, his son the Crown Prince, and two 
of the younger brothers as they, with their 
suite, passed us on horseback. 

On Good Friday, we judged from the 
crowd gathering in the street that some- 
thing unusual was to be expected, and 
after a little waiting came the Princess 
Victoria Louise, only daughter of the 
present Emperor, a- sweet little girl about 
seven years old. She was accompanied 
evidently by her governess and as the car- 
riage passed we had a good opportunity 
of seeing her as she gracefully bowed, 
saluting from time to time the crowd upon 
either side. 

After an interval of some ten or fifteen 
minutes came another carriage, through 
the window of which we caught sight of 
the three younger sons of the Emperor, 
Augustus William, Oscar and Joachim. 
With them were two attendants, probably 
their tutors. After another interval came 
a third carriage, in which sat the Crown 



HOME LETTERS 

Prince, who bears the name of Frederic 
William and with him were, his two next 
younger brothers, William Eitle and Ad- 
albert. The Crown Prince occupied the 
back seat and was accompanied by an 
officer in uniform who sat beside him ; 
his brothers were on the front seat fac- 
ing them. Again after an interval came 
a fourth royal carriage and in it was 
seated on the right-hand side the Empress 
dressed in black, her mother having died 
some two months before. Beside her was 
the Emperor in citizen's dress. 

Thus it has been my privilege to see 
four generations of this illustrious family : 
the old Kaiser, afterward Emperor Wil- 
liam ; his son the Crown Prince Frederic, 
(" Unser Fritz " as his father called him); 
his son the present Emperor William, and 
the present Crown Prince. This Prince 
has just celebrated his majority (being 
sixteen years of age) and is now to set up 
an establishment of his own. It was in 
honor of this event that Emperor Francis 
Joseph visited Berlin the early part of the 
month, at which time he conferred upon 
the Prince a title or position in the Aus- 
trian army even more exalted than that 

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already occupied by the Prince's father in 
the Austrian army. 

We were awakened one or two morn- 
ings by a company of soldiers with their 
band passing along the street. Such pre- 
cision of marching and drill as one sees in 
the German army is simply marvellous. 
A whole regiment steps as one man and 
wherever we have seen them they appear 
made of stalwart and sturdy material. 

We were allowed to visit certain por- 
tions of the old palace which is occupied 
by the Emperor. It is of great extent. 
Some of the rooms (there are in all seven 
hundred) are of great magnificence and 
splendor. A regiment of soldiers is always 
in possession of the palace and is changed 
every day as well as its band. 

We were also allowed to visit the pal- 
ace formerly occupied by the elder Em- 
peror William. When we were last in 
Berlin it was his custom at a certain hour 
of each day to look out of one of the pal- 
ace windows and hence there gathered in 
the street daily a great crowd of people 
to see him. Since his death the curtain 
has been drawn and it is said no one has 
looked out of the window since. All his 

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rooms and those of his wife, the Empress 
Augusta, who died in 1890, two years 
after her husband, remain as they left 
them. The apartments are literally filled 
with gifts of every description made to 
the former Emperor and Empress, of 
which they appear to have been very ap- 
preciative. The elder Emperor's work- 
ing-room, the adjoining ante-room where 
callers sat when waiting presentation, his 
desk, prints, pictures of the family, a 
thousand and one things, all are as he 
left them, a monument of the past. 

We took a drive in the Thier Garten, 
which comprises six hundred acres of 
woods quite within the city. We visited 
the tombs of Louise of Prussia, and Fred- 
eric William III.; saw the interesting 
sculptures in commemoration of German 
History which are being erected by the 
present Emperor, the great monument to 
Liberty in memory of the last war with 
France, and the new houses of Parliament, 
in the rear of which is to be a fine memo- 
rial of Bismarck. The zoological gardens 
are the finest in the world — so clean, so 
orderly, and all the animals looked so com- 
fortable and well fed it was a pleasure to 

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see them. The hippopotamus being pro- 
vided with a steaming warm bath, evi- 
dently did not seriously miss his native 
Nile ; and the lions and tigers were the 
finest specimens I had ever seen. The 
buildings, spacious and of great variety, 
are well adapted for these various in- 
mates and the grounds are extensive. 

I think it a characteristic of the Ger- 
mans that whatever they do, they do well. 
They seem to rise to every occasion and 
meet the necessities of the case. I have 
never seen elsewhere such clean, comfort- 
able street cars as those of Berlin and the 
attention to the comfort of passengers is 
worthy of imitation. 

At Charlottenburg we visited the pal- 
ace but were disappointed in that the 
rooms once occupied by the Queen, 
Louise, are not now shown to strangers. 
At the mausoleum are now the additional 
monuments of the old Emperor and the 
Empress Augusta but they are not as 
beautiful or interesting as the older ones 
of Louise and Frederic William III. 
That of Louise is most beautiful in its 
artistic simplicity. 

The impression made upon my mind at 

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seeing the German Emperor was, on the 
whole, very favorable. I am inclined to 
think he is thoroughly in earnest, honest 
in his convictions, and believes he is in a 
way personally responsible as king over 
his people. Indeed I think there is a cer- 
tain degree of feeling akin to fathership 
entertained by both Emperor and people 
in a country like Germany or Russia, 
which it is quite impossible for Americans 
to enter into or comprehend. The people 
regard the Emperor as standing in the rela- 
tion of a father to them, and the Emperor 
really reciprocates the sentiment. He is 
a wide-awake, hard-working man, who 
keeps himself under pretty strict disci- 
pline. The other day when news came 
of the attempted assassination of the 
Prince of Wales, the Emperor was at the 
telegraph station the next morning before 
seven o'clock, attending personally to the 
sending of his messages of congratulation 
and sympathy. 



157 




Chamonix, June 7, 1900. 
N my last letter I did not 
tell you all I wished of our 
stay at Berlin. I think I 
stated that our hotel, the 
Royal, was interesting be- 
cause frequented by members of the 
Reichstag. It is located at the corner of 
Unter den Linden and Wilhelm Strasse. 
The latter is literally a street of palaces. 
Bismarck's city residence is located on 
it, and he sometimes occupied a suite of 
rooms at this hotel. Opposite the hotel is 
the fine residence of the British Minister. 
The Emperor sometimes dines at the 
Royal. The proprietor has a fine cut- 
glass goblet which he values because used 
by the Emperor upon the occasion of his 
last visit. At such times he is attended 
by several officers who are constantly near 
him, some at the entrance of the hotel, 
some at the door of his room. His own 
cook comes to prepare his dinner. While 

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he has the same menu as that provided 
for other guests, the food is prepared 
separately by his own servant. His own 
table appointments are also brought for 
his use. He eats alone, that is, at a sepa- 
rate table. As one forearm is shorter than 
the other, and so disables him, he has a 
knife and fork combined, whereby he 
serves himself with one hand. 

It was at this hotel that the French 
Ambassador was staying when the sudden 
declaration of war on the part of France 
in 1870 made his precipitate departure 
necessary. He left everything in the way 
of furniture, which still remains in the 
same apartments. Some of it is very ele- 
gant : I noticed particularly two gilded, 
or rather, gilt bronze candelabra of the 
finest workmanship which stood on the 
sideboard. I was requested to lift one, 
and to my surprise it weighed, I should 
say, forty pounds or more. 

There were one or two rooms occupied 
by an old gentleman whom the proprietor 
said had been there for fifty-two years ; 
we were admitted to these rooms, as the 
occupant was away for a week during 
the Easter vacation. He occupies some 

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position under government which brings 
him into close communication with the 
court. There was another room which had 
had the same occupant for over forty years. 
This old gentleman was also absent for a 
few days, during the recess of the Reichs- 
tag. The proprietor said he was a great 
thinker, always engaged in his work. He 
had his correspondence arranged in piles 
on the floor and did not allow anything 
touched. A pile of papers relating to a 
certain matter remained intact until the 
incident, whatever it might be, was closed 
when they were filed away. The room 
was put in order only once in three or 
four months, this during his absence from 
town. 

The proprietor of the hotel talked very 
freely to us, quite to my surprise, as it is 
understood one must be careful about 
giving expression to one's views in public. 
I suppose he felt safe in talking to us in 
his own house. He remarked that Fred- 
erick III., the father of the present Em- 
peror, was far more popular with the 
people than is William II. Frederick 
was a good friend to the Jews, which he 
was inclined to think was a mistake and 

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not for the best interests of Berlin. He 
spoke of the unhappy position occupied 
by the Empress Frederick (Victoria's eld- 
est daughter) since her husband's death. 
The fact of her giving preference to Eng- 
lish doctors in the care of her husband 
aroused a feeling against her, some think- 
ing that German physicians would have 
saved his life. Now when she comes to 
Berlin she receives no attention when 
passing along the streets, which must re- 
mind her how changed all would be were 
her husband still alive. 

He said William II, though a good 
man and ruler, was not a man of the peo- 
ple, neither was he popular with the older 
men who had lived under the rule of his 
grandfather. Bismarck, he commented, 
while he had done much for Germany, 
was a cruel man, and so was his son Her- 
bert. While the chancellor had done 
much for the state, he had also been care- 
ful for himself and his family, and though 
originally poor he had died very wealthy. 
The landlord referred with no little feeling 
of bitterness to the treatment which the 
family accorded the Emperor, who, upon 
learning of Bismarck's death, hastened to 
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his side but was not permitted to see the 
face of the dead, the coffin-lid having been 
closed before his arrival. 

Our host told us that he himself had 
been in close attendance upon Frederick 
III during his illness so we were quite en- 
tertained by his discourse, which served to 
throw an interesting sidelight on the do- 
ings of the royal family, outside the usual 
sources of information. 

He had come into possession of the 
hotel within a few years and spoke Eng- 
lish as easily and fluently as ourselves. 
This circumstance always astonishes one 
in view of the fact that so few Americans 
speak more than their own language, and 
when they do acquire another tongue it is 
often very imperfectly spoken. 

But we must pass on and leave the 
beautiful city of Berlin, to tell of our jour- 
ney toward Paris. On our way there we 
stopped for a few hours at Wittenberg, 
for many years the home of Luther. An 
oak is pointed out which grows on the 
spot where he burned the Papal bull. 
We visited the quaint old Augustine 
monastery where Luther came in 1508 to 
take the chair of philosophy in the Uni- 

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versity of Wittenberg. In this building 
he lived. The curious old rooms are still 
shown, with the strange, huge, porcelain 
stove and the quaint window-seat where 
he and his wife used to sit opposite each 
other while partaking of their beer. On 
the wall was a portrait of his little daugh- 
ter — an exceedingly beautiful face ! 

In the market-place stands a large 
bronze statue of Luther and Melancthon. 
In the church are their tombs. The 
wooden doors, upon which Luther tacked 
his ninety-five theses, have been replaced 
by bronze ones, presented by Frederick 
III when he was Crown Prince. The 
theses are cast in full text upon the outer 
side of these doors. We entered the 
church where Luther had frequently 
preached and where the communion was 
for the first time administered in both 
forms. 

We spent a Sunday in Leipsic in order 
to see Mrs. Pratt and her interesting 
daughters. It was Easter and, failing to 
find the English church, we gained en- 
trance to St. Thomas's just as the preacher 
was closing his sermon. The great church 
was filled, more than two thousand being 

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in attendance. We were impressed by 
the devout, earnest appearance of the 
congregation, which seemed to show a 
comprehension on their part of the service 
in contrast with what one often sees in 
Italian Catholic churches. Their read- 
ings being in Latin, you feel the sincere 
manner must often be rather a feeling of 
reverence than an understanding of the 
service. The boy choir sang that cele- 
brated hymn of Luther's, commencing, 
" A mighty fortress is our God." In this 
the great audience joined with impressive 
effect. Immediately after, communion 
was administered at the altar by two 
priests in white and black robes, the 
choir boys and the priests intoning the 
service, which was very beautiful. 

Monday morning we left Leipsic for 
Weimar, a most interesting town. Many 
English are there and one English church. 
There is a fine bronze monument of 
Goethe and Schiller, who stand together. 
We visited Goethe's house, where he lived 
for about half a century. It is now a mu- 
seum containing his belongings, a clock 
from his father's house at Frankfort, his 
bed, portraits of his family, and a thousand 

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articles of a personal character. We 
walked also in the little garden, and later 
went to the house of Schiller, where there 
is a similar collection of personal effects, 
rendering a visit most interesting. 

We visited the home of Liszt, the great 
musical composer, where are hundreds of 
expensive gifts from crowned heads and 
others. We drove through the lovely 
park, where hundreds of people were 
walking, and stopped to see the summer 
cottage which belonged to Goethe. This 
is located in a beautiful position among 
the trees, and here he lived for seven 
years during the summer months. The 
simple furniture he used still occupies the 
rooms and in the garden the flowers that 
he planted with his own hands continue 
to bloom as each summer's sun returns. 
We did not have time to visit the mauso- 
leum where repose the remains of these 
two gifted men, Goethe and Schiller, for 
we wished to reach Eisnach that night 
and the train came early. 

On our way the railroad passed many 
points of historical interest, such as the 
battlefields of Jena, Leipsic, Austerlitz, 
and Lutzen, where the great Gustavus 

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Adolphus was killed. We passed through 
Gotha and Erfurt, both intimately con- 
nected with the earlier life of Martin 
Luther — indeed this whole region seems 
associated with the great period of his life 
and work. 

At Eisnach we found such funny little 
rooms at the Hotel Routenkranz. Out 
of curiosity I measured the height from 
floor to ceiling, to find it only seven 
and a half feet. The cuisine was most ex- 
cellent and all pleased us greatly. The 
town, like all those we have visited since 
leaving Berlin, is very quaint and pictur- 
esque. We went into the old church, now 
modernized, where Luther used to preach. 
In the square stands a fine bronze statue 
of him. Close by the church is an old 
structure, curious both inside and out and 
at least four hundred and fifty years old, 
where Luther is said to have lived with 
Ursula Cotta. 

It is a lovely drive to the Wartburg, and 
the place is most interesting aside from its 
historical association. It was here Luther 
resided for a time a willing prisoner, un- 
der the care and protection of his good 
friend, the Elector known as The Wise. 

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In the room he occupied there still re- 
mains his stove, a huge porcelain struc- 
ture, together with his bed. And here, it 
is said, he threw an inkstand at the Devil, 
striking the wall. This palace or fortress 
was formerly the home of the Landgraves 
and is still kept in fine condition. Pictures 
or frescoes on the wall represent the 
sainted Elizabeth, the loaves of bread in 
her apron having turned to flowers upon 
the discovery of her forbidden charity. 

On our return we stopped at the former 
home of Fritz Reuter. Connected with 
this is a museum which holds a collection 
of many things pertaining to the life and 
music of Richard Wagner that have been 
preserved and presented to the city. 

Our next stop was at the quaint old city 
of Frankfort, where we drove through the 
old Jewish quarter and saw the house 
where the founder of the now wealthy 
family of Rothschilds lived and died. 
Formerly the gates to this section of the 
city were closed and locked at night and 
the Jews shut in. We visited the small 
collection of statuary celebrated especially 
because of the beautiful marble statue of 
Ariadne, by Dannecker, and later spent 

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an hour at the house and home where 
Goethe was born and where his father 
lived. 

This place was most entertaining to me. 
I had read Goethe's autobiography, in 
which he has so much to say about his 
early- life, his father, mother, sister, and 
incidents connected with each. It was as 
if the rooms were repeopled with their for- 
mer occupants. 1 recalled his interesting 
tales of childhood and youth, his father's 
anxieties, his grand receptions, the com- 
ing of King Charles to Frankfort and all 
the excitement connected with that im- 
portant event. I could, in imagination, 
see his father in the important position of 
host, surrounded by courtiers in the pic- 
turesque dress of the period. There also 
was the room in which Goethe was born. 
The whole house is a museum of interest- 
ing things in connection with the family 
of this illustrious man. 

We left Frankfort at two o'clock for 
Strasburg, crossed the Rhine and feasted 
our eyes on the great fields of vineyards, 
admired the rich soil of the vast plains 
that stretch like a prairie on either hand, 
once the rich river bottoms, every foot 

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now cultivated as though it were a garden, 
and afterwards passed through Mayence 
and Worms where the celebrated trial 
of Luther took place in the presence of 
Charles V. Approaching Strasburg one is 
in the neighborhood of some battlefields 
where Germany and France fought in 1870; 
but in contrast to war's rude clamor all is 
the more quiet now. When we arrived 
at the city itself, we took a look at the 
great cathedral and at the wonderful 
clock, which latter was twenty-four years 
in building. 

The next day we were off at ten o'clock 
for Paris, passing, not far from Metz, the 
celebrated battlefield of Gravelotte, so 
disastrous to the French, so victorious for 
the Germans. There nearly half a million 
men engaged and over thirty thousand 
lost their lives in a single day. 

The approach to Paris was fine ; it was 
a beautiful spring afternoon. We reached 
the city about six o'clock Paris time, and 
the arrival in this great metropolis, I im- 
agine, must always be accounted a mem- 
orable event in one's life. 



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Vevay, June 13, 1900. 

|E were in Paris for a month, 
which is sufficient time in 
which to see the great city 
very satisfactorily under 
ordinary circumstances. 
But this year there was the Exposition 
and that made the time quite too short. 
In truth, one could spend the whole 
period of one's visit profitably within the 
great Exposition enclosure, a description 
of which requires a good-sized volume. 
It is indeed a wonderful sight, no doubt 
quite beyond any other world exhibit 
that has taken place. The Columbian 
Exposition at Chicago was a beautiful 
spectacle in its architectural effects, which 
were rendered the more effective by its 
lagoons and its proximity to the lake. In 
this respect, one might perhaps be par- 
doned in claiming for it superiority. 
Still the exhibit at Paris is superior, in 
my opinion, in all other particulars, even 

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in architecture. This of course was to be 
expected : were it otherwise the world 
would have been disappointed. 

Paris, it may almost be said, is the cen- 
tre of Europe, and into her lap all nations 
have this year poured their treasures as 
they would not, indeed could not, any- 
where else. In all departments one ob- 
serves that Germany has fairly outdone 
herself. And France — well, one looks 
and wonders and admires, and the longer 
he looks, the more he is impressed. Such 
paintings, and such miles of them, one 
could well cross the ocean to behold ! In 
sculpture one fairly tires of the display. 
For some reason England seems to have 
failed to do all we could expect. It is prob- 
able her unhappy war may have had some- 
thing to do with this. Our own country 
is well represented in all departments ; in 
art as well as in matters more practical. 

As you enter the Exposition, from the 
Place de la Concorde, your attention is 
arrested by a fine bit of sculpture. It is 
an Indian, mounted bare-back on an In- 
dian pony. We must conclude he is 
placed there in order to make an Ameri- 
can feel at once very much at home. 

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At Chicago, if I am not mistaken, there 
was little exhibited in the way of dynamos, 
but so great has been the increase in the 
use of electricity as power during the past 
eight years, that among the most impos- 
ing of exhibits is that pertaining to the 
generating of electricity. Automobiles, 
too, are a prominent feature, much greater 
than one would suppose so few years of 
experiment could make possible. 

It was most unfortunate that so much 
remained incomplete at the time of the 
opening. This of course disappointed a 
great number of people, and many were 
unable to see the exhibition in its entirety 
as they had hoped. We were among that 
number, and as I think of what it must be 
now, or will be in a month's time, I can 
but feel a little envious of those who, 
more fortunate than ourselves, failed to 
reach Paris before July. Yet we have 
only to picture the crowds and the conse- 
quent discomfort, dust, and noise, the high 
prices of everything, the wear and tear 
and confusion that in Paris seems to know 
no cessation day or night, Sunday or holi- 
days, but goes on all the time ; one has 
only to think of those things and feel 

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thankful he has seen the wonders of the 
Exposition and has not to go again. 

For, to tell the truth, in Paris, as else- 
where in this world, " all is not gold that 
glitters" and just between ourselves, I 
think we were a little disappointed in 
Paris. One hears so much about its being 
so bright, and the people so cheerful, and 
so polite. As a matter of fact we found 
it less bright than Berlin, the streets not 
as clean. We did not discover that the 
people were apparently any happier than 
elsewhere and, as for politeness, we found 
them certainly no more courteous, per- 
haps less so, than Germans and Austrians. 
If sitting on the sidewalks for their meals 
instead of eating in the quiet of their own 
homes is any evidence of good cheer, they 
certainly are entitled to the reputation. 
I incline to think that this custom, com- 
bined with the fact that it takes so very 
little to amuse and entertain a French 
crowd, is responsible for the impression 
that Paris is the gayest place in the world. 

I think too, that under the Republic 
there is more freedom to individuals and 
less care in the general administration 
than there was under the Empire. The 

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public squares look untidy, hugh placards 
disfigure the beautiful buildings and the 
granite bases of the statuary are often- 
times spoiled in the same manner. 
Everywhere the election posters of white, 
green, yellow, and blue paper were plas- 
tered at all angles. The air was full of 
dust and the streets of crowding cabs, — 
most of the latter the worse for wear, 
drawn very generally by horses that looked 
jaded and worn and driven by avaricious 
coachmen who were too often cruel. 
Picture these, commingled with speeding 
bicycles, huge two-story omnibuses, cars 
drawn by motors that look ready to crush 
everything on the track before them, auto- 
mobiles that go tearing along at such a 
rate one wonders there is not a collision 
at every turn, and you have a combination 
that leads you to feel every time you re- 
turn from an outing, that only a special 
providence can account for your being 
back with unimpaired limbs and a sound 
skull. 

But, despite all these incidentals, we 
had a very pleasant sojourn in the French 
capital. The first morning after our 
arrival I walked out past the Louvre and 

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was saddened as I missed that beautiful 
building, the Tuileries. I had thought it 
the finest thing in Paris when I was here 
before. Now not a stone remains to re- 
call the long array of historical incidents 
connected with it. Only a garden marks 
the spot where it stood ; and who can tell 
what would have been left had not the 
German army interfered to rescue the 
city from its own people, the Commune. 

I strolled by the beautiful Opera House 
that was just completed when I was in 
Paris before, but the pure white stone is 
now faded and begrimmed with smoke. 
It is perhaps the finest building of its kind 
in the world, having cost ten millions of 
dollars, and it must always be a joy to 
look upon. Yet I could but recall with 
regret its much grander appearance thirty- 
five years ago when Napoleon III and his 
beautiful Empress were in their prime. 

We made our way to Napoleon's tomb. 
Even that grand monument shows that 
time fades all things, and for one I could 
but feel that there was little left of the 
great warrior save this fading glory. He 
claimed he did all for France, but why for 
France if at the expense of other powers 

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equally worthy? But this is too large a 
subject for a letter. Please pardon. Per- 
haps you are an admirer of "the little 
Corporal." So am I, — but with limita- 
tions. 

At Notre Dame we saw the tomb of the 
Archbishop of Paris, so cruelly assassinated 
by the Commune. From all accounts he 
was a fine grey-headed old man who much 
deserved a better fate. When I return I 
wish to procure a copy of Mr. Washburn's 
book which he published after his return 
to America, in which he gives full partic- 
ulars of his strange experience in the 
beleagured city during that exciting 
period of its history. At the Chapel Ex- 
piatory we saw where, for twenty-one 
years after their execution, reposed the 
bodies of Louis XVI and Marie An. 
toinette and where still rests all that is 
mortal of over six hundred of the Swiss 
guard who so valiantly defended them at 
the cost of their own lives. 

We were much interested in visiting the 
Musee de Cluny, an interesting collection 
of old furniture and curiosities. The 
building itself is one of the oldest in 
Paris. We have at home a painting of 

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the exterior, of which we are very fond. 
We visited the Louvre and among many- 
other treasures saw Murillo's Conceptione 
and the Venus de Milo, both of such 
world-wide renown. 

Directly opposite the Louvre is a church 
(St. Germain 1' Auxerrois) in the tower 
of which hung the bell whose doleful notes 
on that dreadful summer's night pro- 
claimed the massacre of St. Bartholemew, 
August 24, 1 5 72. A window in the Louvre 
is still shown as that from which Francis I. 
looked out upon that bloody scene. In a 
room below, built by Catherine de'Medici 
and now occupied by works of art, the 
illustrious Henry IV was married to Mar- 
garet of Valois and here his body was 
placed after his assassination. In the 
same room the immortal plays of Moliere 
were acted and read by himself in 1659. 

What was more interesting still, we 
visited the Prison de la Conciergerie, which 
is still used as a prison though originally 
built, before the Louvre, for a palace. 
We here saw the little cell occupied by 
Marie Antoinette and stood within it ; 
saw the steps down which the unhappy 
Queen with heavy heart passed on her way 
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to trial ; also the cells of Robespierre, 
Due d'Orleans, and many others. There 
Madame Recamier and Elizabeth, sister- 
in-law to the Queen, were imprisoned for 
days, expecting each hour would be their 
last. Through that little door in the left 
of the chapel passed more than two thou- 
sand men and women of the best blood of 
France, to be hastily shorn of their locks, 
while there in that corner waited the cart, 
backed up to carry them to the Place de 
la Concorde where they were publicly guil- 
lotined. It almost seems too horrible to 
be true, but to what has not France been 
equal ? 

We spent one afternoon at the palace 
of the Luxemburg where there is a famous 
picture gallery. We noticed there with 
pride and interest pictures by Whistler and 
Sargent. We went to the opera, and also 
to see " the divine Sarah " Bernhardt in her 
play " L'Aiglon — The Eaglet — " in which 
she takes the part of Napoleon's son the 
Duke of Reichstadt, King of Rome. Each 
was over at twelve o'clock. Paris devotes 
its days to business, its nights to pleasure. 
One or two evenings we took a carriage 
and drove for an hour through the boule- 

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vards just to see the people and the lighted 
streets, which together are a sight in 
themselves. The streets of Paris are a 
perfect spider-web, a net-work which to me 
is very confusing. Few streets run for any 
length in a straight line, and when they turn 
ever so little, the name changes. Besides 
this, every little way a number of streets, 
concentrate as at the junction of Niagara 
and Delaware in Buffalo, an arrangement 
which never fails to confuse a stranger. 

A drive in the Bois de Boulogne amid 
thousands of people and thousands of car- 
riages is one of the fascinating experiences 
of Paris. At every turn were beautiful 
vistas, and there were groups of people on 
the grass and amid the trees and shrubs, 
which latter were lovely in their fresh 
green leaves. The little lakes were bright 
with boats, and artificial waterfalls lent an 
added grace. On our way out we visited 
the Chapelle de le Due d'Orleans, which 
is erected upon the spot where he lost his 
life, — he was thrown from a carriage. 
There is here a beautiful reclining figure 
of the Duke ; standing at the head is an 
exquisite marble angel designed by his sis- 
ter, though when the statue was executed 

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she had no thought of the purpose it 
was destined to fulfil. The untimely 
death of this excellent man it is believed 
changed the whole history of modern 
France. His lovely wife, Helen d'Orleans, 
one loves to remember and to read of. 

We made two visits to Versailles, one 
to visit the palace, and again to see the 
fountains play. But I shall have to write 
later of this, so for the present, adieu. 




1 80 




Interlaken, June 26, igoo. 

Y last letter was of our stay 
in Paris and I cannot leave 
that interesting city with- 
out adding a little to the 
story of our sojourn there. 
A visit to Paris without a trip to Ver- 
sailles would indeed be incomplete and as 
I stated in my last letter we went there 
twice. This vast palace remains a monu- 
ment of that period in French history 
immediately preceding the terrible experi- 
ences of the Revolution, and it is indeed 
an epitome of extravagance, luxury, 
pride, and royal indifference to the needs 
of the public. It stands today almost un- 
changed from the time, over a hun- 
dred years since, when a howling mob 
gathered in its great square demanding 
nothing less than the persons of the 
royal family. At the entrance to the 
Queen's bedroom the door is still shown 
where some of the faithful Swiss guard 

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defended, at the cost of their lives, the 
entrance to her apartment. 

One is particularly impressed with the 
exceeding grandeur of many of the royal 
suites, and more with the long record of 
events and associations of the place. How 
generation succeeded generation again and 
again ! No wonder they came to regard 
the palace as a home that must last for- 
ever, invincible to change. But it is as the 
home of the beautiful Queen Marie An- 
toinette and of Louis XVI, her husband, 
that the palace is particularly interesting. 

After the innumerable rooms adorned 
with hundreds of portraits of distinguished 
men and women, and of paintings which 
record much of the past history of France, 
it is with a feeling of quiet restfulness 
that one walks through the extensive 
park, along avenues as secluded as one 
can well imagine, to the retired cluster of 
houses forming a little hamlet. Here, in 
imitation of a peasant village, the King 
was simply the chief, and the Queen, as 
his wife, attended to the making of the 
butter, and the selling of the same in the 
little market-place. Here her customers 
were court ladies dressed in peasant cos- 

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tume, one of them as a shepherdess, an- 
other a farmer's wife, and so on. 

There is something really pathetic to 
me in all this, for, as one thinks of these 
royal characters, and especially the Queen, 
it discloses on her part a longing for a 
simple life, more close to nature, an ex- 
perience so hard for her to attain. It was 
while absorbed in this soothing, delight- 
ful dream that news was brought her that 
the mob was at the palace doors. The 
enchantment was broken, all this exquisite 
beauty of wood and lake, green fields and 
solitude was exchanged for a gloomy 
prison cell, amid the tumult of a wild, un- 
governable populace crying for her blood 
and that of those most dear and precious 
to her. Could one conceive of anything 
more truly tragic and pathetic? This 
quiet miniature hamlet with its mill, the 
old water-wheel slowly turning, the little 
farmhouse with stalls for the horses, all 
so pastoral and peaceful, and without, the 
gathering of a stormy tempest, for outside 
the palace gate, two miles away, poured 
the tumultuous tide upon which most of 
these participants were to be borne to an 
untimely and terrible death. 

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Before leaving Paris we drove a second 
time to Versailles to see the fountains 
play, which they do occasionally, for an 
hour or two. Thousands flock to see 
them, and this brief display is said to cost 
some two thousand dollars each time it 
is given. Just before the largest of the 
fountains was turned on a fearful rain 
broke upon us. I do not know that I ever 
experienced a more severe storm ; thou- 
sands upon thousands of people were 
drenched and the scattering of the im- 
mense crowd was almost appalling to 
behold. 

It was upon this second visit that we 
obtained entrance to the " Galerie de Bat- 
ailles," which is a beautiful room four 
hundred feet long by forty-two feet wide. 
The walls were closely adorned with paint- 
ings, among which it was interesting to 
notice a fine painting of the Battle of 
Yorktown, showing the surrender of Lord 
Cornwallis : the French General, Rocham- 
beau, holds a prominent position in this 
beside our great Washington. 

Almost equally as interesting as Ver- 
sailles is the palace of Fontainebleau, a 
huge pile. In connection with it is a park 

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of forty thousand acres, through which 
are beautiful drives and shady walks. It 
was on the steps at Fontainebleau that 
Napoleon bade adieu to the generals of 
his old guard, his companions in many a 
battle, and it was on the same spot less 
than a year after that he reviewed the 
soldiers in the great court there upon his 
return from Elba in 1815. It was in this 
palace that sentence of divorce was pro- 
nounced against Josephine. Here Napo- 
leon signed his abdication. The table 
still stands there upon which he attached 
his signature, also another table upon 
which his followers were required to pledge 
their allegiance. Here Louis XIII was 
born, and Louis XIV, Louis XV, Louis 
XVI all long resided here. A very gor- 
geous bedroom of Marie Antoinette is still 
shown. Here Henry II and Henry IV 
lived for many years and it was here that 
Louis XIV signed the revocation of the 
Edict of Nantes which, obtained under 
Henry IV, had for so long a period se- 
cured toleration to the Protestants. 

We were shown the rooms occupied for 
nearly ten years by Pope Pius VII and 
where he was virtually a prisoner under 

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Napoleon. In the beautiful chapel Louis 
XVI was married, also in 1837, the Due 
d'Orleans. In the Galerie des Assiettes 
are the Sevres china plates with decora- 
tions ; among them is one with a picture of 
the Genesee Falls, at Rochester, New York. 

The palace was built by Francis I and he 
here entertained Charles V. Both Louis 
Philippe and Napoleon III were long 
residents here. The latter had fitted up 
a very pretty theatre. No doubt Eugenie, 
amid her celebrated court, distinguished 
for its beauty and its dress, took delight 
in it, though we were told it was used by 
her upon only eight occasions. The pres- 
ent President of the Republic spends a 
period of each year at Fontainebleau. 

When visiting the Pantheon, a magnif- 
icent building, we had not obtained a pass, 
and therefore did not gain admission to 
the crypt, where repose the remains of 
that illustrious Frenchman, Victor Hugo, 
whose memory the world delights to 
honor. Voltaire was once buried here, 
but his tomb was removed in a spirit of 
revenge for the disturbance of the tombs 
of the royal dead at St. Denis. 

At the Sorbonne, — the great university 
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of Paris, with its fifteen thousand students, 
— we saw the fine marble tomb of Cardinal 
Richelieu which is in the church connected 
with the buildings. We entered the church 
of St. Roch ; it was in the square in front 
of this structure that Napoleon made his 
first attack upon the mob of Paris, Oct. 
5, 1795 : the square then extended to the 
Garden of the Tuileries. A little farther 
down the river was pointed out to us the 
house where Napoleon then lived. It was 
a very modest abode. 

It was our privilege on Sundays to at- 
tend the services at the American chapel, 
conducted by Dr. Thurber. The attend- 
ance was quite large, but the service was 
in marked contrast with the subdued 
devotional characteristics of the Scotch 
Presbyterian service we had pretty gen- 
erally enjoyed attending on the continent. 
The truth is, anything very serious does 
not seem to appertain to Paris. Perhaps 
in no other city does one find larger expen- 
diture for church edifices, but one feels im- 
pressed with the absence of a devotional 
spirit. The ritual remains. There are to 
be seen many young girls in white dresses 
going to their confirmations but I never 

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saw one going accompanied by her father 
— generally an attendant, sometimes alone. 
The family, as constituted with us, bound 
together as a common unit, with its sacred 
associations, I, as a simple tourist, failed to 
find. A closer student of French life may 
possibly see things in a different light. 

One Sunday afternoon I walked up to 
the church of the Sacre Cceur, a new 
building on an old site. The approach 
was through a street entirely given up to 
little shops for the sale of rosaries and 
articles pertaining to church matters and 
a busy scene it was. The church stands 
on one of the highest points in Paris and 
is built of heavy masonry ; it was so heavy 
that I could but think it possible the in- 
tent might be to some time use it, if re- 
quired, as a fortress as well as a church. 
The movements of the French populace 
are uncertain. 

To my surprise, I found within a large 
congregation, perhaps a thousand people, 
and before them a priest giving a sermon 
without words, if you can imagine such 
a thing. There were all the impressive 
gestures of an impassioned pantomimist 
but not a word from his lips, while the 

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audience sat in deep attention as he por- 
trayed agony, joy, humility, exhilaration, 
distress ; at one moment in earnest appeal, 
in another defiant and proud. It was a 
service for deaf-mutes. Of course there is 
no observance of Sunday in Paris as we 
regard it, though the stores are pretty 
generally closed. The day is regarded 
more as a holiday and devoted to excur- 
sions and pleasure. 

Our stay in Paris drew to a close and 
we prepared to leave. Instead of going to 
England, we determined to direct our 
steps at once to Switzerland, and so bade 
adieu to Paris with its dirty streets and 
crowded thoroughfares, its cold winds and 
dust-filled air, its noise, its crowds of pleas- 
ure-seekers, its crowded cafes. All of these 
I think served to make one long for quiet, 
for a country where people seem really to 
live, where they are honest and kind, and 
you can believe them conscientious, God- 
fearing, Christ-loving, having something 
to do beside work, make money, and spend 
it in getting pleasure. 

On Thursday, May 17th, we took the 
fast train for Dijon where we remained 
until the next day in order to break the 

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ride which many make in a night. We 
wished also to see this quaint old town, so 
long the home of the Duke of Burgundy, 
where Charles the Bold and his beautiful 
daughter, Mary of Burgundy, both were 
born and lived, as well as Jean " Sans 
Peur." 

The fine old palace still stands as com- 
plete as in the days when armored cour- 
tiers thronged its gates. We visited the 
cathedral with its grotesque carved figures 
in rows above rows at the front, and at 
noon took train for Lausanne. Grad- 
ually our road ascended as we approached 
the Jura range, and just before sundown 
we plunged into a long tunnel, emerging 
from which, we were in Switzerland, the 
land of liberty and beauty, where the 
green valleys terminate in the white glow 
of everlasting snows, a land where man 
has done much to adapt and make acces- 
sible the wondrous beauties of creation. 
Of this we will write another time. 




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Interlaken, June 27, igoo. 
AM sure no one will appre- 
ciate more fully than your- 
self the reason which led 
us to abandon our original 
plan of visiting England 
and coming to Switzerland instead. In 
my own mind there dwelt the living mem- 
ory of a beautiful past, fresh as the Alpine 
flowers that bedeck the green meadows 
about us and bedewed as with the cloud 
mists that train in majesty along the high 
valleys, while my heart was scored with 
an indelible experience such as the sur- 
face of these Alpine rocks record as they 
lie in the pathway of the vanished gla- 
ciers. I recalled these scenes of Alpine 
loveliness, where the green hills wandered 
up, up, up, until lost amid the glorious 
fields of everlasting snows, fields upon 
which rested the brightness of the glow- 
ing sun, until they were lost in the moun- 
tain mists still higher. And then, just 

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a little above, beyond our ken, I seemed 
to see the white robes of that saintly num- 
ber to whom had come the blessed privi- 
lege of a glorious immortality. In their 
midst is one whom we all so loved and 
whose memory we cherish among the 
dearest, tenderest ties of life ; and with 
her yet another who, unspotted by the 
world, had been born on earth and then 
so soon was borne to Heaven. So many 
years had intervened I longed to rest my 
eyes once more on those familiar scenes 
and to be drawn into closer sympathy 
and relation with this land — a land asso- 
ciated with so much in my life that lies 
too deep for words. 

Thus at last we found ourselves beside 
the little grave at Clarens, " Sweet Clarens, 
birth-place of deep Love." There was 
the same glorious view of mountains, lake 
and sky, sunlight and shadow, and withal 
a sacred solitude in keeping with a spot 
dedicated to sorrow and separation. Green 
was the turf and bright the flowers bloom- 
ing above that grave of buried hopes ; the 
little dove still nestles on its marble ped- 
estal. It seemed but a day since I laid 
my treasure there in a spot which then, as 

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now, was and is one of the most beautiful 
I have ever seen. Again and again I vis- 
ited it and, before departing, we went for 
the last time laden with the most luxuri- 
ous roses that ever bloomed, and together 
we covered the little mound and went our 
way. 

Switzerland has grown more beautiful 
during all these years. It seemed a para- 
dise then, but so much has been added! 
Change is manifest on every hand. The 
dear cottage at Clarens, from whence de- 
parted one of the sweetest, purest spirits 
that ever blessed our earth, is no longer 
there. On its site stands a large building 
connected by a covered way with one of 
older date. Nearly opposite a beautiful 
little Protestant church has been erected. 
Beautiful gardens abound everywhere. A 
trolley car runs all the way from Vevay to 
Chillon, a funicular connects the border 
of the lake with Glion, and above a rail- 
road extends to Caux, a large hotel. 

It was from there that the Empress 
Elizabeth made that last tragic journey 
to Geneva where terminated her life. She 
was very fond of Caux. We were per- 
mitted to visit the rooms she occupied, 

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and from the large upper piazza beheld 
the grand view of the lake and the semi- 
circle of green hills with their forests. 
We spent two weeks in the vicinity of 
Clarens. At Ouchey we occupied the same 
rooms at Hotel Chateau that you had oc- 
cupied at one time. At Vevay we were 
at the Trois Couronnes hotel, — lovely 
views and pleasant rooms. 

A week passed pleasantly and quickly 
at Geneva and then we visited Chamonix 
and feasted our eyes on the monarch of 
mountains. We climbed to the Flegiere 
and to Montanvert, crossed the Mer de 
Glace, and walked down the Mauvais Pas. 
Then on a glorious day of brilliant sun- 
shine, went over the Tete Noire, to Zer- 
matt, at the foot of the Matterhorn. On 
over the highest railroad in Europe we 
travelled to the Gorner Grat, with only 
the Gorner glacier between us and Monte 
Rosa, the next highest mountain in Eu- 
rope to Mont Blanc. Finally, we crossed 
the Gemmie, one of the most beautiful 
passes in Switzerland, and followed the 
lovely Kanderstag valley down to Inter- 
laken where we now are. 

I am sure it would be tedious were I to 
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attempt to give you a detailed account of 
these several journeyings, all so beautiful, 
but all made up of views of lofty green 
mountains terminating in frozen glaciers 
and snow-fields amid clouds and blue sky, 
stupendous precipices, forests of unbroken 
solitude, green meadows dotted every- 
where with picturesque chalets and bright 
with over five hundred varieties of Alpine 
flowers. Huge rocks lie in wild disorder 
everywhere, while the air is musical with 
the tinkle of the bells upon the herds of 
cattle and goats that climb about the 
steep hillside paths. Add to this the blue 
lakes which slumber in the depths of the 
hills, the bustling, hurrying, rushing moun- 
tain streams that go tearing along in their 
rocky channels, pretty hamlets and vil- 
lages everywhere, all connected with care- 
fully graded roadways and walks. Picture 
all this and combine the whole as we 
would in a moving kaleidoscope and you 
have a pretty correct idea of Switzerland, 
though to one who had never seen it I do 
not believe the brightest imagination 
would be able to picture it half so beauti- 
ful as it really is. 

On our drive from Kanderstag we 

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stopped to see the Blaue See, a small 
sheet of water which we approached 
through a field of rocks as large as houses. 
These huge rocks are for the most part 
covered with green moss, trees, and ferns. 
When we stood on the bank of the little 
lake we were amazed to see its waters al- 
most as clear as the air above them. The 
whole bottom, which was of a bluish hue, 
was perfectly discernible ; the tiny fish 
could be as distinctly seen as though in 
the air above, and this to a depth of sixty 
feet. Anything more absolutely ideal it 
would be difficult to imagine, and had I 
not seen it I would not believe there was 
ever anything of the kind possible. We 
stepped into a little boat and were rowed 
about over the surface of this seemingly 
melted crystal, while above us was a sky 
so blue, flecked with clouds, that I thought 
I had never seen its equal. Year by year 
these beauties remain. As Byron well 
says, " States fall, arts fade, but Nature 
doth not die." 

Perhaps in no other spot have the 
changes been so great as in the immediate 
neighborhood of Montreux, near Clarens. 
It was hard to reconcile the place with my 

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memory of it thirty to thirty-five years 
ago. The shore of the lake is now like a 
continuous city. The well-known quiet 
and seclusion that one so enjoyed in the 
past is no longer possible there. It was 
like another place. Perhaps it was as well 
for changes are now in harmony with the 
changing years which come to each one 
of us. 

At Lausanne we went one day and sat 
for a little while in the quiet garden where 
Gibbon wrote the closing chapter of his 
Roman History. At Vevay we lingered 
on the terrace of St. Martin to enjoy the 
view. Within the church are the tombs 
of the regicides, Ludlow and Broughton : 
it was the latter who read the sentence to 
King Charles. From there we drove to 
Castle Bloney and were permitted to visit 
the rooms you occupied and enjoy the 
lovely scenery from the windows. 

While at Geneva we visited one after- 
noon the venerable home of Madame de 
Stael, at Coppet. It was like a leaf from 
an old romance of a hundred years ago. 
The fine old chateau, the grand trees, the 
picturesque approach, and in the rear the 
fine park, the library and salons, the bed- 

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chamber adjoining that of Madame Re- 
camier's with all its furniture unchanged 
seemed to annihilate the intervening years 
and we almost felt ourselves their favored 
guests as we gazed at the family portraits 
upon the walls, not only evidently good 
likenesses but beautiful works of art as well. 
Another day we drove to Ferney, but, 
having been misinformed about the time 
when visitors were allowed to enter, we 
were unable to gain admission. So we 
left the home of Voltaire unvisited. 
We were more fortunate in our endeavor 
to see Diodati where Byron wrote the 
third canto of Childe Harold. The at- 
tendant opened the house and we were 
allowed to stroll through the rooms at- 
tractive with antique furniture. On the 
walls are family portraits, all in keeping 
wittra long-passed period. This balconied 
room where Byron wrote and slept is 
quite unchanged. The property belongs 
to a banker in Geneva who spends a por- 
tion of the midsummer there. It com- 
mands a fine view of Geneva, the Jura, and 
the lake. No doubt it was from this beau- 
tiful garden that the poet wrote of the 
approaching storm, 

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" From peak to peak, the rattling crags 
among, 

Leaps the live thunder ! Not from one 
lone cloud 
But every mountain now hath found a 
tongue, 

And Jura answers, through her misty- 
shroud, 

Back to the joyous Alps, who call to her 
aloud." 

During our whole stay of a week at 
Geneva Mont Blanc failed to fully reveal 
himself and we had to await our arrival at 
Chamonix to get an entirely satisfactory 
view. Then I tried to rehabilitate a verse 
I have heard, but which, like a broken 
relic in a garret, lies half covered in a 
shadowy corner of my brain. Perhaps 
you can arrange it for me in its proper 
order : 

" Mount Blanc is the monarch of mountains, 
He was crowned long ago. 
In his chair of state, supreme, he waits 
In his diadem of snow." 

The second morning after our arrival 
at Chamonix the view of the summit was 

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unbroken, and we could see with the naked 
eye the observatory at the top, erected 
there by Dr. Jansen in 1893, on a snow 
foundation forty feet deep. Excavations 
to that depth revealing nothing but snow 
they concluded to build on that. 

There was one tourist with a guide and 
two porters attempting to reach the top 
the day before we left Chamonix, and with 
a telescope we could see them gradually 
working their way, cutting with their axes 
a path for their steps in the ice and 
snow. 

It was a revelation which that first clear 
morning brought. I awoke in its early 
light. As the dawn advanced, the moun- 
tain was soon a blaze of glory and later it 
was a beautiful sight to see the sunlight 
break through the fissure between the 
peaks and glance down into the valley. I 
sat for an hour watching the wondrous 
sight, one of the most beautiful in nature. 
With the telescope we could, in imagina- 
tion, travel these great unbroken fields of 
snow without either discomfort or danger, 
could stop for a moment at the Grand 
Mulet where those who ascend generally 
spend the first night after crossing the 

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Glacier de Bosson. Later great argosies 
of clouds came floating up the valley, arid 
as they passed far below the higher peaks, 
through interstices one could see granite 
walls of rock and snow beyond them. 
Once looking thus we saw just above the 
cloud a pointed snow peak which resem- 
bled the long slanting roof of a Swiss villa 
apparently located fourteen thousand feet 
above the sea. But most glorious of all, 
the very summit of Mont Blanc, which 
for ten days had had its head so com- 
pletely enveloped in fleecy clouds that we 
could not for a certainty determine just 
where it was, this morning stood out in 
majesty supreme, grand as a dream of 
heavenly beauty. 

Scarcely less magnificent was our view 
from the Gorner Grat, with the white 
snow-fields of Monte Rosa rising over fif- 
teen thousand feet above the sea. The 
great Gorner glacier below us intervened 
between us and Monte Rosa. The distant 
roar of the water beneath the glacier was 
the more impressive, because, unseen, yet 
like a deep-toned organ peal it broke the 
solemn silence of that high mountain soli- 
tude. 

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My letter has given you but a sketchy 
outline of all we have seen and done dur- 
ing the past few weeks, but I trust I have 
at least been able to recall to your mind 
some of the pleasant places your eyes have 
rested upon. 

And now our thoughts are toward the 
blue waters of the Owasco, as they nestle 
among the familiar scenes of our own be- 
loved land. How sweet to be once again 
surrounded by English-speaking voices 
and the cheerful chatter of American boys 
and girls. We have yet in prospect 
another delightful week of travel in 
Switzerland. To Lucerne, over the Bru- 
nig, a glorious day down the historic, 
castellated Rhine to Cologne, with its 
divine Cathedral — to my mind the most 
superbly beautiful of any on the conti- 
nent. We must visit the old town of 
Bruges with its quaint tower that our 
own great poet has enshrined in verse ; 
spend a few days in Belgium's capital ; a 
week or more in picturesque Holland, and 
then only the ocean will lie between us 
and home, of which surely never were 
truer words penned than those immortal 
lines of John Howard Payne, 

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'Mid pleasures and palaces though we may 
roam, 
Be it ever so humble, there 's no place 
like home ; 
A charm from the skies seems to hallow us 
there, 
Which, seek through the world, is ne'er 
met with elsewhere. 
Home, home, sweet, sweet Home ! " 

Finis. 




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